Hey new followers!
Thanks so much for following me :) You guys are awesome! I’m sad to report there’s not much going on on this blog anymore. I kept it while I was abroad in England, and now that I’m home I have a new one. If you check out http://servemethesky.tumblr.com/, I’ll be posting a lot more!
Thanks again for following!
xoxo
This is it. My last post. Maybe. I am no longer in England, so this blog has fulfilled its purpose.
I’d like to say thank you to everyone who has read my entries, viewed my photos, and shared this experience with me. I have loved writing to a growing audience, and really appreciate the positive feedback from all of you.
Keeping a blog was a new experience for me, and has been extremely interesting. Writing these entries was a huge part of my abroad experience. It has shaped my memories of everything I have done in the past four months. There was a really fascinating element of crafting the way I thought about my student teaching, my travels, and my day-to-day life in Bath through chronicling it all here. I have enjoyed every aspect of this process immensely.
If you’re interested in following my life in the aftermath of my semester in England, you can check out my new blog at http://servemethesky.tumblr.com/.
Thanks again for reading! It’s been amazing.
Asked by: thepensieve
Hi! Do you know what level you’d like to teach? I worked at a secondary school, and taught Year 7 (11 year olds) and Year 13 (17 year olds). I taught the Year 7s English and the Year 13s American History. I have a lot of posts about my school placement, if you go back through my tumblr they’re all tagged with ‘education’ and ‘teaching.’ They might help you get a better idea of what your placement could be like.
That being said, my placement was fairly unique for a number of reasons. I only went into my school once a week for 10 weeks, as I was taking my own classes and volunteering in addition to my placement. Also, my school was split into 3 campuses, and I was observing/teaching on all 3, so that entailed a lot of running around. Additionally, my host teacher had never hosted an American student before and was fairly disorganized, so that made for a few more frustrations.
Major differences: in the UK, education is more of a ‘commodity,’ which makes all public schools a lot like American private schools (ex- almost all schools have mandatory uniforms). Essentially, education is viewed as a product the taxpayer is purchasing. They are thus entitled to the best product possible. As a result, there’s a great deal of standardized testing and a lot of pressure on the kids to do well. OFSTED comes in to inspect schools annually, and that puts pressure on the staff too. Furthermore, British schools operate under a National Curriculum. This is a standardized curriculum across the UK (excluding Wales now), where all children all across the country are learning the same things at the same time. Some find this restrictive and feel it limits their creativity within the classroom, while others believe this simply isn’t the case.
As for a region I’d recommend- I was in Bath, which is an affluent community, so most of the kids came from a good background and were very hardworking. Bristol, just 10 minutes from Bath, is known for having some of the poorer schools in the nation (in terms of league tables). Their schools are also much more diverse. If you’re looking for really diverse classrooms, though, you’d probably want to do London or somewhere just outside London. It all depends on what you’re looking for and what programs Mansfield offers.
Anyways, I’m sorry that was so long- I usually try to be very concise, but I wanted to give you a good answer! I definitely recommend studying abroad if you get a chance- it’s one of the best things you can do! And please hit me up with any more questions if you have any :)
If you’ve been wondering about my program in Bath, this video encapsulates it pretty perfectly. The program is called Advanced Studies in England, and the video was created by a friend and fellow ASE student for his internship at Suited and Booted Studios. Enjoy!
Photos from my last week in Bath
This is the last list, I promise. Here are the things I miss most about Bath:
Of course, I don’t miss things like having to convert everything in my head and realize I’m spending more money than I’d like to, academic work, and missing my dogs every time I see one. But aside from that, I miss Bath and England a whole lot.
I also learned a great deal about things like Virginia Woolf, Bath Abbey, the English education system, and myself that I can’t articulate concisely in this list.
Here are some statistics from my semester in Bath:
Other things just cannot be enumerated- things like Ben’s Cookies eaten, friends made, and hugs given and received.
Within the United Kingdom:
England
Scotland
Wales
Outside the United Kingdom:
Austria
Czech Republic
Hungary
Ireland
Switzerland
