What is it about geography teachers that they never seem to go sick? I’m halfway through my first term of supply and I have yet to cover a geography lesson. It has certainly given me a chance to expand my teaching repertoire. As someone more used to talking about erosion, rivers and settlement at secondary level, I have found teaching the numeracy and literacy hours to pupils who still want to hold your hand and tidy the classroom “interesting”. The learning curve is steep.
And how do you take a unihoc lesson with 32 Year 4s on a distinctly downward sloping playgrund? At the secondary level I have had to recall my GCSE knowledge of Macbeth, discuss texts I’ve never read, construct 3D drawings, explain the workings of the kidney and solve IT problems, as well as the usual - work out how to use the electronic register, guess my way around the layout of another school, avoid sitting in the wrong seat in the staffroom and, of course, to shout - loudly. They don’t cover all that in the PGCE.
Anna Harding is an NQT who qualified from Homerton College, Cambridge, last year. She spent her first term as a supply teacher
