A few days of chaos ...

As I write, I have just returned from Maryvale Institute in Birmingham. I was there for a residential weekend for the students following Maryvale's initial teacher training course (PGCE). These students are now in the "final run" of their course - they will, God willing, qualify in July. The Saturday evening session asked each student to present in 7 minutes their "best lesson". This was a fascinating session, with the students displaying a huge dose of enthusiasm both for teaching and for the subject matter of RE. In the context of Bishop O'Donoghue's visit to the House of Commons Select Committee for Education on Wednesday of this coming week, it might be of interest to note that something approaching half of the students in this group of 19 are not Catholics (one student is a Muslim). So much for authentic Catholic education being divisive!

During my visit, I also had a welcome opportunity over lunch to meet Fr Francis Marsden, a busy (very busy!) parish priest from Lancashire. I first met Fr Francis in student days, and many will know him from a column in the Catholic press.

Part of my time was spent with the students, part in meetings to do with the development of the PGCE course. I have, needless to say, come away with a job list. An interesting prospect that I have coming up in May is the writing of some materials on non-written assessment strategies. The brief I have is to write this material from my work as a science teacher (ie just put in ideas I use in my own teaching - now that is how to write a course book!). I then plan to set activities for the students to do that will get them to take my ideas from science teaching and transfer them to their RE teaching.

OFSTED (Office for Standards in Education) are visiting Maryvale to inspect the PGCE course in May, something else I need to get my head round....

On Friday, before travelling to Maryvale on Saturday morning, I had looked after our "first Friday" Eucharistic Adoration in the parish. For the Holy Hour, we prayed the Stations of the Cross using meditations adapted from those used by Pope John Paul II at the Colosseum on Good Friday in the Jubilee Year. An encouraging attendance for the Holy Hour. With the children I used just four stations - but I could have been a bit better organised with them!

All of which contributed to giving me a few days of chaos ....