Couch to 5K - week 5, run 3

Run 3: brisk 5-minute warm-up walk, then 20 minutes running, with no walking.

It's quite normal for me to go months without blogging and now I'm writing two posts in two days.

I wrote yesterday about how worried I was about doing 20 minutes of running without stopping. I felt a bit sick the whole day worrying about it and I was hoping and praying that my running partner wouldn't want to go out. When we did go out the warm up was awful, I'd been and done a gym class earlier in the day and I felt stiff and uncomfortable, and I was aware that we were walking much slower than we really needed to for an effective warm up. I was very tempted to turn around and walk home without even starting to run. Eventually we got to our normal starting point for running and I felt completely hopeless, there was no way I could possibly do 20 minutes constantly without stopping so there was no point in trying. I decided to run as slowly as I could to the mouth of the park on our normal running route, I'd done this before in a free practice and I know that this is about 10 minutes away. I'd also decided that I wouldn't check my watch until I got there. So I kept running, aiming for the mouth of the park but before I got there Laura on the C25K podcast said I was half way through. This confirmed that I was running surprisingly slowly. So I decided to keep on going to the mouth of the park, as I had originally planned. I checked my watch at this point and found I was 12 minutes and 30 seconds in heading in to the really difficult park going up hill over longish grass. I then decided to run through the grassy bit and then review. Part way through it said that I was 15 minutes in and only had 5 minutes left. This was the first point at which I acknowledged that I could actually complete this. I had a slight mishap at this point when I tried to go down the gully way out of the park but there were some people going the other way, running partner had already gone through so I got a bit stuck running up a path in completely the opposite direction to the one I needed to go, but I managed to run a small loop so I could keep going and the whole thing was quite a useful distraction. We ran up to our normal cooling down stretch and the app told me that we'd made it.

I don't think I ever really considered stopping. It was a fantastic experience, before I set out I was sure I couldn't do it but once I got started I quietly decided that I was going to do it and I did. I know that today was make or break, if I had stopped to walk it would have knocked my confidence and been the first time that I hadn't enjoyed running so I'm so pleased it worked out well. Now we get to graduate onto week six.  

Couch to 5K - week 5, part 1

Week 5

There are three different workouts for this week. They are as follows:

• Run 1: brisk 5-minute warm-up walk, then 5 minutes running, 3 minutes walking, 5 minutes running, 3 minutes walking, 5 minutes running.
• Run 2: brisk 5-minute warm-up walk, then 8 minutes running, 5 minutes walking, 8 minutes running.
• Run 3: brisk 5-minute warm-up walk, then 20 minutes running, with no walking.

I honestly thought I’d read this week’s couch to 5k schedule wrong.

Run 1 - that’s possible

Run 2 - that’s challenging but possible

Run 3 - surely in the wrong week. That can’t possibly be run three of week five!

I don’t understand why run three is so much more challenging than any of the others. It’s more than double the time I’ve run in one go before.

We’ve now completed run one and two from this week without any real issues. I enjoyed both of them and I suggested to my running partner that maybe we should do these two once more each to get up more into running for an extended period but he said we should just go for it. My worry is that I’ve never actually given up on a running section and walked and this is something that I prize highly, I don’t want to give up on this but I just don’t think I’ll be able to keep going for the full twenty minutes. I think it’s important to note that my running partner stops to walk (and sometimes stops completely) quite regularly, he tends to do a sprint section and is then exhausted, so stopping holds no shame for him. Part of me wishes that I’d stopped for a walk in one of the earlier runs so I could experience the failure of giving up earlier and then gone out the next day and smashed it. I’m pretty sure that’s cheating.

I’ve been trying to sort out strategies for this big run. I’ve got my new running shoes, which are really successful and I’ve got one of those handheld running water bottles because I’ve found being really thirsty distracting in previous runs, I know that you’re not supposed to need water up to 5k, but I’m hoping it will at least be a reward I can give myself. What I’m not sure about is a strategy during the run. I’m planning on going as slow as humanly possible whilst still not walking (I do still run slower than I walk at times, but I don’t stop running) but I’m yet to decide whether to “allow” myself some walking breaks, how many and for how long.

I’m ready for the physical side of the run, but I’m yet to figure out the mental part.

via GIPHY

Couch to 5k - week 4

Week 4

For the runs in Week 4, you will begin with a brisk 5-minute warm-up walk then 3 minutes of running, 90 seconds walking, 5 minutes running, 2 ½ minutes walking, 3 minutes running, 90 seconds walking, 5 minutes running.

Week four is where the running starts to get really difficult. I actually felt like I started to experience what it is like to do some "proper" running rather than the very short bursts we'd been doing up to now.

On run one of this week I had misunderstood how many runs there were in the session, we did three minutes, followed by five minutes and then three minutes, at which point I thought we'd finished and I started to figure out the best route home at which point the woman, who I absolutely detest, by the way, chirped back up and said I'd got to do another five minutes. I was absolutely devastated. I spent the 30 seconds before the running section started completely inconsolable, I kept repeating over and over that I couldn't do it and it was impossible. I started up and I did actually manage it, which I was really proud about. The sense of accomplishment at completing something really difficult overrode any pain or discomfort that I felt when I was out there. I think this was the first time I’d come across a mental challenge where it was mind that was letting me down rather than my body. This may be more difficult than the physical challenge.

Couch to 5k - weeks 1 to 3

Week 1

For the runs in Week 1, you will begin with a brisk 5-minute warm-up walk, then you will alternate 60 seconds of running, with 90 seconds of walking, for a total of 20 minutes.

Week 2

For the runs in Week 2, you will begin with a brisk 5-minute warm-up walk then you will alternate 90 seconds of running, with 2 minutes of walking, for a total of 20 minutes.

Week 3

For the runs in Week 3, you will begin with brisk 5-minute warm-up walk followed by 2 repetitions of the following; 90 seconds of running, 90 seconds of walking, 3 minutes of running, 3 minutes of walking.

A couple of months ago I heard a colleague speaking to another colleague about running, he said that he was a former runner and he used to really enjoy it. The key thing he said was that the first few weeks would be difficult but, within a couple of weeks you’d really begin the feel the benefit. I’m not usually susceptible to the power of suggestion like that which is why I never have any idea what the radio or television ads are actually trying to get you to buy, but for some reason this really resonated with me. I’m not sure what it was, maybe I was feeling a bit down or having a fat day, but I just decided that I’d go for it. My colleague went on to say that he felt that the best way to get into running was interval training where you walk a bit and then run a bit to stop you overdoing it and he suggested a couch to 5k app which would give you a running plan to help you build up into a proper runner

I went home that night and downloaded the NHS couch to 5k app, I was surprised that there were literally hundreds of choices so  plumped for this one as it seemed the most ‘official’. I set off my first “run” which was a five minute warmup, followed by 60 seconds of running, then 90 seconds of walking repeated for 20 minutes and then a five minute cool down walk. The app is narrated by a selection of famous voices, I chose Jo Willey, who tell you when to walk, when to run and give you ticks and encouragement as you go along. I don’t know how I managed it, but I did the perfect route which took me to my front door at the end of the cool down. I found it really hard, especially on the middle few running sections but I managed to run the whole time that the app instructed me to run and I had a huge sense of achievement once I’d finished.

The first couple of weeks were difficult at first, but I found I was very quickly able to do things which to start with I found really almost impossible. I also feel really good in myself, which is an added bonus. I’m definitely going to keep going with the programme and see how far I get through.

Chicken update

During the exam...

I'm currently experiencing a very strange and uncomfortable feeling. At this precise second my AS students are sitting their AS law exams. It's the first "real" exam. We're had dozens and dozens of practice tests in exam conditions which they were threatened, bullied and bribed into working for but everyone always knew it didn't really "matter" and they were never really "alone" with it. Today it really matters and they are completely on their own.

4 minutes in -they should have read the paper and be half way through question 1

I always struggle when looking up and down at their little face staring up at me whilst they are sitting in the exam hall ready to start. I feel that I am personally responsible for this torment and what I see is that they are begging me to help them, like I always promised I would but this time I can't.

10 minutes in - finishing question 1, starting question 2 

I've been second guessing myself for days, I've done this a fair few times now and I know that I know my stuff but my confidence in my convictions has all but gone. I'm constantly thinking "what if, what if, what if". I know from experience that the thoughts and feelings I am feeling is similar to those of the students right now. The difference is that I can't do anything about the outcome now and my students can do everything about it.

18 minutes in - last few seconds on question 2 

I have to ask myself what I ask the students. Can you look yourself in the eye in the mirror and honestly say that you did everything you could? Then you can do nothing more and whatever the outcome you can feel proud of your achievement. Only time will tell if it was really enough.

90 minutes completed - End of the exam

I spoke to the students as they came out of the exam hall, lots of smiles. Apparently it was exactly as we'd told them and one student said "you know Miss, you're a really good teacher", the tone tells me that this exam has changed his opinion from earlier. Hopefully he'll still be saying this when he gets his results!

How we use video technology in the teaching of A level and BTEC law in post 16 environment

My YouTube channel

I've been investing a fair amount of time recently in producing revision videos for YouTube. My grand summer plan is to get the videos sorted for all of the topics I teach.

Instead of posting each video here which, if you're not a law student is not going to be terribly exciting, I've decided just to link to my YouTube channel. It includes all of the videos as I put them on, as well as some weird and wonderful Youth Club stuff as well as videos of chickens, which everyone likes.

My YouTube Channel can be found here.

I'm a trainee teacher and I need help...

I've been at this teaching thing for four years now and I've learnt more in that time than I have in the rest of my life combined. I've also made more mistakes than at any other time.

Training to be a teacher is far more difficult than I think anyone ever imagines it to be. We've all been taught by a wide range of teachers who influence the practitioner that we become. We've had a "bad" teacher who is really struggling and we vow never to make the same errors as them. We also have the "good" teachers who make it all look effortless and they are the ones who lead us to the conclusion that we too can be like them.

I'm not expert teacher and I regularly make mistakes but I do want to contribute some answers for the benefit of trainee teachers and newly qualified teachers to reinforce that you are not alone in the struggles that you're having. 

CHICKENS!

It's been a while, in the interim I've had a horrible flu like bug that I suspect was actually full blow flu and I ended up taking more time off work than I've ever taken before. Being ill was surprisingly time consuming.

But after being ill we got some new additions which I am very excited about.

We have not  been imaginative at all with names. The white one is a white star called Whitey. The brown one is a crested leg bar called Brownie and the grey one is a speckledy breed and we called her, you guessed it, Speckledy.

The original plan was to call them all cute little girl names so that I could treat them like real children and no one would think it strange when I spoke about them. If I'd said: "I've got to get home because Anna-May is not feeling very well" no one would think that odd, the same cannot be said if I now say "I've got to get home on time, the white chicken is all over the place".

We've had them since Saturday and I think Brownie and Speckledy are settling in quite well. White Stars are apparently a notoriously flighty breed and so Whitey is taking longer to calm down, as you can see in the video.

Teacher - no voice

As most teachers do at some point in their career I recently got the flu and lost my voice. I’m not  sure why I was so surprised as it is one of the most common conditions that teachers suffer with, with the exception I suppose of stress, but people don't tend to talk about going off with stress where is they do talk about the trials and tribulations around your voice.

Having felt unwell for a little while I genuinely believed that I was getting better when I'm coughing fits left me with a bruised throat. In an unusual action for me I decided to take myself off to the doctor's, better safe and sorry to be told that if I wanted to avoid permanently damaging my voice I needed to be quiet completely quiet for the next three days. At the mere suggestion that maybe I could go to work and not talk, the doctor was notably unimpressed and I asked whether I was genuinely serious about getting better. At this point I decided it was probably best to start resting and just accept that I had to stay at home and keep my mouth shut for three days.

In my somewhat fever addled brain I believed that I would spend 3 days productively doing all the work that I wanted to catch up on but haven't been able to because other things have been getting in the way. I think I was experiencing something very common for teachers which is the denial of being unwell. I sat down at my desk at home, having emailed everyone I love to tell them what the doctor said, with the intention I'm doing some really fantastic. I planned to spend three days marking with the depth and clarity of feedback that I always want to give. However it became very clear very quickly that I was far too unwell to actually do this. The most I was able to do in those three days was write a detailed email sending in cover work which, in my heart of hearts I know wasn't done, but I felt better knowing that I've done my part of the bargain.

I try not to speculate too much on what if but I can't help but wonder whether, had I given up a little sooner and taken some time off when I first started to feel unwell whether I would have been able to avoid all of this. As teachers, we genuinely believe that are students won't be able to do it without us, that we are indispensable. I do still believed to an extent this is true the reason why I didn't take the time off is because I know how close the A-level exams are. There is the constant pressure both from the students and from above to get the results. Results are key, and you do whatever it takes to get them and that's what I was feeding off. The sad fact is I knew full well but I was putting my health at risk and that I was in danger of doing permanent damage to my voice which is the main tool of the trade because in the forefront of my mind was results and targets. This is just wrong.

I'm a great believer in setting goals and trying to stick to them maybe this is why I was so focused on my achievement data and not allowing my illness to get in the way that I allowed this to happen. So I'm setting myself a new set of goals. I need to stay focused on the results but I also need to see them in context. I can't sit the exam for the students and I am no use if I am unwell and overwhelmed that I can't function. I'm taking this opportunity to have a change of attitude. I became a teacher because I was so stressed and unhappy  that the way sometimes where I really didn't see the point of going on. I need to do everything in my power to ensure that teaching doesn't get like that as well . I'm embarking on a new regime of self-care where are far more strict with myself on what I eat how much sleep and relaxation I get, regular exercise and not allowing my work life to dominate my whole life.

Flip learning - Blackmail

With the idea of me working less (eventually) and my students working more (also eventually) I've invested some time in creating flip learning videos for A2 law students learning their property offences. I've previously done this with theft but it took such a long time that I never did it again. Before I was trying to achieve perfection but, with a bit more experience, I know that a perfect video is no more effective than an 'alright' video. Although this one clearly has audio of the police helicopter hovering overhead and I can clearly detect a moment of indecision in my voice where I decided whether to rerecord the section again, you wouldn't know that if I hadn't told you. The end result is that my students have a video to view before class and after class to embed and consolidate their learning. I have a resource which I can use for years to come (until they redraft the Theft Act, so I think I'm alright for a while). 

Mindfulness in the law classroom - part 1

A level and BTEC law students are a stress ridden bunch. Its usually only a few month in to their qualifications that they start to feel the full weight of exactly what it is they are doing and as they get further through it only gets worse. These qualifications will have a very real impact on their future prospects. They realise that two marks one way or the other in an exam really can make the difference between securing that prized solicitors training contract and going to the job centre.

As a teacher I know that students need to be taking their studies seriously from day one but, at the same time, I am wracked with guilt about the impact this has on their lives. I feel very responsible that they feel the pressure in such an acute way and so I decided that I had to build in to lessons some coping techniques to help them deal with the stress of being a student in an increasingly competitive world.

Mindfulness

I know I'm a little late to the party with the idea of mindfulness meditation in class but it took me a while to understand enough about how mindfulness works to know how to incorporate it into my teaching. The college employs a fantastic student support worker called Anastasia who came and taught my A2 students and myself in a full length session and this was the overview of what she told us. I'm still reflecting on exactly what we were told but the overwhelming take away for me was that we have to do something with this.

The theme of the session was the assertion that feeling overwhelmed with stress is not a fore-drawn conclusion and we do have a choice. To illustrate this Anastasia first of all she showed us this video below with details all of the horrible things that stress does to your body.

Anastasia then went on to explain the concept of 'neuroplasticity' which is a recent discovered ability for the human brain to change and adapt over time. Our brains are not fixed and we have the ability to train our brain in the same way that we build and sculpt our bodies through exercise. Essentially, the more anxious we become and the more we worry about things the better we become at worrying, but we can train our brains to worry less by practicing mindfulness. The video below shows the impact of mindfulness on our brains.

The session plenary was a five minute guided mindfulness meditation which is focusing on breathing in order to try to prevent being bombarded with constant sporadic thoughts. The aim is to reduce the feelings of stress by letting go of all other thoughts and just focus on the 'now'. It is easier said than done.

I was so proud of my learners because they all gave it a go, whether or not they bought in to the idea. I have to admit that, although I closed my eyes and stayed still I listened to the students the whole way through but I didn't hear a single noise from them. At about 4 minutes in I had a look around and they all had their eyes closed and were perfectly still.  I don't think I've ever been so proud of them.

The best part about the session was feedback I received from students afterwards. I had several students tell me that, for a few moments at least, they felt really at peace and in the 'now' for the first time in months. They achieved a momentary escape from the stress they usually feels. This was enough to make me a convert and over the next few weeks I'm going to make a plan as to how to embed these practices further into my teaching.

Why am I repeating myself..? Why am I repeating myself..? Why am I repeating myself..? Why am I repeating myself..?

I've said it on many occasions but, as teacher, we have more tasks to do than we have time to do them. I would doubt that anyone would dispute this notion. I think anything that will save us some time in the future is worth investing in in the short term.

As a post 16 teacher I teach the same things to the different groups so I end up saying the same thing several times over. There might be some modification in the way that I do things from group to group but often the basic instructions on how to do a task will stay the same. This is especially true with BTEC subsidiary groups when setting them up to do assignment work, it is important that each group gets exactly the same instruction which fits within the BTEC rules so I'm limited on what I'm allowed to say.

I can end up saying the same thing six times in one week and once I realized this I also acknowledged that it is utter madness. You'll set up the assignment to the class and then little Wasim, who is late because he had a dentist appointment will come in and I'll start up and say it all again!

Quite simply put, I don't have time to do anything more than once and that is why I took the step of recording myself giving instructions which I need to give out more than once. I know a lot of people fight shy of voice recording because it is very embarrassing (I don't disagree!) and those who do try it end up spending hours doing take after take to get it exactly right (I've done this too!) Perfection is not necessary, as far as I'm concerned as long as you're not interrupted and you don't swear on the recording then it is more than good enough. You wouldn't practice in front of the mirror if you were going to say something to a group 'live' so why practice when you're going to record yourself saying it?

So you have two options, if you have time, record yourself before hand and then just play it back to the group or alternatively you can record it whilst you say it to the first class and then play it back to class two and three, the late kid, the kid who wasn't paying attention and the kid who forgot what she was supposed to be doing. Then you can do something else whilst they are listening.

The only thing you've now got to do is work out what to do with all that extra time you've bought yourself.

A little thank you is always nice

I was given a college core values award in briefing on Friday morning. I'm not sure exactly what I did to get it, but it was still nice to know that the things I do don't go unnoticed.

Theft and the happy teacher

In order to make ends meet when I was a lowly paralegal I used to tutor A level sociology and law students. It has probably been the most valuable learning experience I have ever had, both in my subject area and also in pedagogy.

I charged a small but reasonable sum for my time and my services became quite popular, I was getting so many referrals that the decision to leave the law and pursue teaching was almost out of my hands, either the law or the teaching had to give and I hated the law side and love the teaching so it was very simple.

I figured out how to plan a lesson almost on my own and I look back on these plans and they're pretty basic. Students must have noticed a huge difference between what they did with me in our sessions and lessons they had at college and I'm sure the main reason why they got a lot out of it was because it was one to one.

The one thing I didn't understand or realise was that resources are not going to be original. I discovered websites like TES resources and Resourcd pretty early on, but I always thought that I had to hide the fact that I was using these things. I used to make great chunks of notes from the textbooks to make it look like I'd come up with it all and, granted it reinforced my own subject knowledge, but it was not a productive use of my time. It would take me as long to prepare for a session as it did to actually teach it,

Its taken me a long time to realise that taking a ready made resource, whether it's a worksheet, an activity or a presentation, is not cheating, it's common sense. As long as I am carefully checking the resources, tailoring them to my students and removing any other college's proprietary branding then I would be mad not to when the thing that I need already exists.

My message is mainly for new teachers, you have more things to do that you have hours in the day, you'll need to find as many short cuts as you possibly can and using someone else's resources in your lesson is somewhere that you can legitimately do this. It's not cheating and its not wrong. You're freeing up your time to do more important things like giving brilliant personalised feedback when marking student work, creating innovative differentiation strategies and maybe, just maybe, doing something for yourself like going home on time or having a lie in.