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We really enjoyed it, for myself it was an opportunity to really share your experiences
because you can feel a bit alone sometimes, so it's great to have a wider community to
have options. The graduate teacher program has been really
beneficial because it gives you the chance to speak to other graduates and also the opportunity
to have an advocate, which is there with you every step of the way and their focus is primarily
on you. And making sure you feel safe and supported in your new profession. And through that you
can really talk about any issues you come across, whether it is your own reflection
on your teaching practice or trying to organise parent night, or interviews or anything that
is just new and unfamiliar and isn't really explicitly taught at university, so it's been
a fantastic journey. I almost didn't think I needed one until I
started speaking to an advocate, so when I went to the first graduate module it was so amazing
to have everyone just say exactly one word of what they were feeling and without hesitating
everyone just stood up and it was it like I'm scared, I'm a duck, I'm not coping! Above
water everyone thinks I'm doing great, underwater I'm pretty much just trying to stay afloat.
And then you start to see okay we're all feeling a little bit this way. And we all have different
strengths that we can learn from each other and then to have the graduate, the advocate
come in, that was just, yeah it was fantastic. Drained because it is a big overwhelming thing
when you've got your entire year and you don't know how to break things up into little areas
so that they feel a little more digestible and so you do feel a little bit scared and
so to have somebody tell you that everybody feels the same way is a bit of a woo. You
will get through it, to have somebody continually telling you that really reassures you that
this is going to be hard but I will make it through and I think without that I would feel;
defeated.