No Placement in Place

An email to my course tutors and Director of the School of Lifelong Learning


Hi Mike, Scott and Pearl,
I had my first meeting with my subject mentor, Laura, yesterday; and sat in on one of her Literacy classes today, which was an interesting and very useful experience. The discussion I had with Laura, though, raised two issues which are worrying me somewhat.
1. My teaching placement.
I had assumed, when I was told I had "a place on the FT DTLLS programme with a placement in Literacy in the School of Lifelong Learning", that a set of classes enabling me to cover my required 150 hours of teaching had been earmarked, and that my mentor would be aware of this and able to tell me what my teaching timetable would be and who I needed to contact.
It seems that this isn't the case; that there is no "placement" in place and that it may be my responsiblity to sort this out. This feels like a rather precarious situation to find myself in and a stressor I could do without while getting to grips with the intensive learning and demanding course work of the first few weeks of DiTTLS.
2. Literacy Core Curriculum Training
As the relevant people were aware, I have a degree in English and Drama but no previous experience in teaching Literacy. Laura suggested that in order to do so, I might need to do a two-day course in Literacy Core Curriculum Training - which I would have to source myself, as there isn't one at our college, and would have to be paid for. However, Laura did also wonder whether the Functional Skills/Minimum Core element of DiTLLS would give me enough Literacy background to cover this. I can't see when I can fit two days of an external course in before Christmas and certainly can't afford to fund another set of fees. How have previous Literacy placements worked?
Does anyone else have any thoughts about this?
All the best
Literata