In my case, this was arranged through the help of my teacher, Lucy Sweetman.
I scheduled in my calendar to observe her class on Monday the 1st of April, and here is how it went:
We began all seated in our usual tables, my normal work buddy (Sophie Rivers) unfortunately wasn’t in attendance, but it was to be expected as everyone i knew personally was under extreme stress with pending deadlines.
This stress was somewhat relieved by the addition of cake, as it was a girl’s birthday – and she was kind enough to bring a cake in to share with the class. I have provided a picture of the exact cake.
I wasn’t supposed to observe a third year seminar, let alone one of my own classes – but i thought it would be a good practice run to observe and fill out the observation form, so that I knew what I had to look for. Lucy’s lesson was very good, although I had a family emergency (Boyfriend prone to intermittent blackouts) I stayed for most of the first part and enjoyed it a lot. The part of the session that i witnessed was focused on ‘The third sector’ – Charities. We listened intently to Lucy’s stories of her experience working for various charities which was very interesting, and then following on from that, various students shared their own experiences. It was positive and lighthearted discussion with some catty humour (student’s bad experience with a local mp) and a brainstorm on the whiteboard for those with more visual learning (along with everyone else) to participate in. The class developed and Lucy instructed the students to collaborate in group discussion. Lucy asked me if i would like to join one of the adjacent groups, which was kind of her as i do suffer from anxiety, and it was nice to be considered. Regardless i felt more comfortable on my own, but this was an excellent example of gold standard teaching. If i do overcome my anxiety issues and become a teacher, i will make sure to follow that teaching example.
Lastly, before I had to leave, we were given some letters of Lucy’s as examples of how charities gain supporters. There was lots of informative content, and I felt that i genuinely learned various angles for approaching supporters in letter format.