Professional Practice 2 – Blog Review

Over the past few weeks, it has been really interesting looking into the analytics of social media, and also expanding our practice into the professional world. It has made me think about how I use social media as a tool to promote myself. I have also found it really interesting doing more research into teaching as a possible career choice for me.

https://www.buckingham.ac.uk/education/pgce/independentpgce

I found this course at Buckingham University which offers an iPGCE (a PGCE specifically for Independent schools). I know a number of people who did this course and really rated it, especially as you get to complete the course remotely whilst working in a school of your choice. This allows you to gain some really good first-hand experience of working in a school whilst learning about teaching.

Whilst looking at PGCE courses I have been having a think about what I want to teach in the future. As I said in a previous post, my end goal is to teach Art at a Prep School level (probably about KS2/3). Quite a few Prep Schools go up to Year 8 (as opposed to Year 6 like other schools), and so this would allow me to work over the 2 Key Stages.

However, I am aware that, at the moment, the demand for Art teachers in Prep Schools is not great. So, if I wish to make myself more employable, I may look at doing English alongside Art in my PGCE so that it gives me more opportunities when applying for jobs.

For our Interim Exhibition, we had to do an online exhibition as we were unable to have a physical one due to Covid. As part of this, we did a Social Media take over in which each of use had a day where we could post anything we wanted on the Art Station’s Instagram account, relating to our work. It was a really interesting experience and something I had never really done before. It made me think about how we use social media to promote our work online.

I am currently looking at possibly going into a career in teaching after University. It has been a passion of mine for a few years now as I come from a family of teachers and so I have had a lot of experience in education!

I currently work in a Boarding House at a Prep School in Suffolk and so I have already had a lot of advice about the best route into teaching and what I would want to teach.

I think I want to teach Art at KS2/3 as this is where I have had most experience working/the age group that I enjoy working with the most.

I have spoken to the headmaster of the school, and we have come up with the possible idea of continuing my job in the boarding house next year, but also to volunteer in the classroom during the day as a way to get some more experience in teaching.