As a teacher, planning and preparation is vital to ensure the smooth running of a classroom. It is very hard to teach without having planned your lesson in detail and getting prepared any materials you will need.

Most teachers have a basic plan of what they will need to be covering within a term or half term and then on a weekly basis, split this down in to specifically what to teach within that week. You can often refer to previous lesson plans from earlier years to base your planning on but as educational targets and views change, you may need to tweak this each time you use it. There are also some great places to find resources to help you with your lesson plans and advice from other teachers on how to tech a specific subject in an informative and fun way.

Always ensure you have time put aside each week to go over the next weeks plan and double check it.

Ofsted stands for Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills. Their job is to regulate and inspect all settings which are responsible for caring for children and young people or any educational setting.

When they come in to a setting they carry out an inspection to establish what level the setting is at for certain areas. These areas include: Overall effectiveness, Effectiveness of leadership and management, Quality of teaching, learning and assessment, Personal development / behaviour and welfare, Outcomes for children and learners and The effectiveness of early years and sixth form provision, where applicable.

Each area is given a score of 1-4 1 being outstanding and 4 being inadequate. If the setting receives a 3 or a 4 then they are required to improve their performance in these areas. A little while after the inspection takes place the report by Ofsted will be available for the public to view.

If your child was born between the 1st September 2011 and 31st August 2012 then they will be due to start school in reception in September 2016. From October 2015 you will be able to register places for your child at whichever school is your preferred choice. You can select up to three schools in order of your preference.

This does not guarantee your child a place at your first choice of school, but if you are in the catchment area and there are places then you will usually be offered this. Some parents get preference over others such as if you already have one child attending that school or if your child has a health concern that means it would be easier if they attended one closest to you.

Closing date for applications is the 15th January 2016 and you should hear by the 18th April as to which school your child has been offered a place at.

Some people chose to start work straight after their GCSE exams and as soon as they are legally old enough to do so, whilst others may not actually start looking for work until they are in their mid 20’s due to a university course or taking a gap year or two to travel around.

Choosing which career path to take has to be decided based on your own personal circumstances and career that you wish to go in to. There is no set right or wrong time, everyone is different and many will follow different routes (sometimes even in to the same job).

When it comes the time to start job hunting for that first job it can be extremely scary and you may feel a little overwhelmed on how to go about it. Depending on what industry and job role you wish to go for, can determine where you need to look. You can always speak to a careers advisor who will be able to point you in the right direction in terms of the path you need to take.