If you’re training to be a teacher in Scotland then join the TES Scotland Trainee Teachers Group. This is the place to get together with other trainees to discuss your course, teaching placements, lesson planning and to get support from your peers.
A mistake that almost everyone makes at the start is to focus all of your attention on what is going on directly in front of you, and feeling like you always have to be interacting with the pupils.
Sometimes you can learn a lot more by taking a step back and looking at what is going on in the classroom as a whole. How is the teacher is managing the classroom, how are the children are working and learning?
DO: Be positive
DO: Give 100%
DO: Talk (to teaching staff and other students)
DO: Use your initiative
DON'T: Be their friend (the pupils, the parents and to an extent the teachers - for a while)
DON'T: Assume (anything)
DON'T: Try to seize control (find the right balance with initiative)
DON'T: Use apostrophes where they aren't required (sorry, OCD about this one!)
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