NQT

Magic Number

There has been a lot of talk this week about 29% ! Not because 29 is particular interesting although it is  a prime number, A Lucas  number, and there are 29 days in February in a leap year. It is, for the mathematicians among you, also a a Pell prime a tetranacci number and an Eisenstein prime.

The talk  wasn't even because of the stereotypes loved by comedians, `Lot 29' was to auctions what `PC 49' was to policemen. `Lot 29' was likely to be a hideously ugly vase, a chair on the point of falling to pieces, a wireless that only crackled, or some other object that no one in their right mind would want to buy. And it wasn't even because 29 is the highest possible hand in a game of cribbage.  No! The talk of 29 was because that is the percentage A-C at GCSE grades my school got last year!

It is interesting because it has put my school on the 'National Challenge ' list. Any school below 30% goes on this list and they get a load of cash to try and improve. If they don't improve by 2011 ( I think the meeting was at the end of a very long day I only had half my brain there the other half was still on the copious amount I have to write for reports and the fight my year 9 had in the last period ) they face closure or being turned into an academy.

My school thought 'great we are closing anyway  but now the govenment is going to give us a load of cash and we can make sure we go out with a bang.' It was particulary  interesting seeing the figures the govenment  proposed. They are spending about £4m on the challenge with more than half of it towards the closure or change to academies - which kind of presumes failure doesn't it ? !

The implications of this "national challenge" do not seem very  postive at all . For my school it  doesn't matter, it was the first  time we had dipped below the 30% and at 29% we are in the not so pants bracket but it got me thinking how would this be for other schools? According to our Head there are six hundred and thirty-eight  schools on this list, surely most will be from the poorest and most disadvantaged areas of the country? What good is it going to do the children in those schools to be set statistical "targets" in terms of examination results? From what I have seen and heard those targets are  unrealistic in both their extent and timescale. This is in a round about way acknowledged in the way the money has been allocated.

How does a child and the parents of that child feel when their school is threatened with closure or replacement by academies if they fail to achieve them?

This kind of thing can only serve to further undermine teachers and  "named-and-shamed" schools will surely be destabilised. Which can only  have the effect of denigrating and demoralising their pupils? It all
seems to be part of what can only be described as a very cynical political game. If schools are seen as failing then the government stands more of a chance of convincing parents and local communities that the idea of private-sector control of schools is  a good idea.   

My form were saying to me yesterday they are at the worst school their parents read about it in the paper. I said to them that they are at a school where their teachers care about them they achieve a lot  to be proud of and not everything in the paper is true. I also started a discussion on subjective reasoning and how everyone has a different definition of what is bad. Quite a few of my children said 'well I like it here stop putting it down', which I thought was good , and talked about the production they are doing at the end of term, how we achieved in a recent maths challenge etc.   

Lets go back to the private sector control of schools, surely this is  dangerous? It give me the collywobbles when I think of people with a specific agenda not necessarily for the good of society getting involved in how children are educated. For example I have had a personal  horror of fundamentalist Christians or Muslims not letting children learn about Darwin , ever since I spoke to a teacher who received an essay on genetics where the only source of research was the Koran. (In passing, 29 is also the number of suras in the Qur'an that begin with muqatta'at) I met an educated man  the other day who blithly refered to evolution as a nineteenth century theory. It scares me that to some people a rejection of 'Darwinism' is becoming associated with some kind of moral superiority .

I think blurring the boundaries between Science and theology can only lead to some kind of awful pseudoscience unsupported by empirical evidence which is just plain dodgy . As a maths and science teacher , I have a passion for science and I remember being struck by the profound explanatory power of Darwin when I was at school. Thinking about it, without a proper understanding of Darwin's theories you could never understand anthropology , palaeontology, zoology , physics the list goes on . So if is not taught ipso facto it could only lead to a lack of specialists in those fields in the future which would most likely hinder the creation of a competitive economy. 

Hmmm went off on a tangent then, but how we educate our children is so important it bothers me greatly the way education is being handled by our present govenment. Not that I know that much about it as a NQT I am still learning, and unfortunately don't have the time to read enough. AS I am not a parent I have not really thought about govenment education policies, well ever really (although I used to be very active on the environmental side) until I started the teaching malarky, 

Well I have hit politics and religion in this blog often considered taboo , thought it only right as the last blog discussed sex ! I would be pleased to hear any comments if I still have any readers left ....

I always feel I don't know enough !   

A hand job.....

Back large as life with as many spelling mistakes as ever !

Sorry I have been quiet for a while I managed to bust my wrist making typing painful. Was a bit of a story - I tripped. The hospital said it was fractured and put a cast on it gave me a disc with the x-rays on it to take to the fracture clinic when I got home. I e-mailed them to a doctor friend of mine saying 'hey mate how long till I can windsurf again?' He e-mailed back why have they put a cast on it it is dislocated not fractured! Which did explain the excruciating pain - which made me just think I was a wimp with a low pain threshold . So I went back to hospital and got it checked as the cast had been put on by another hospital. They were quite honest with me , not only was it not necessary but it had made the injury worse - it was lucky I only had it on for 5 days , as it is I am having to have hand physiotherapy to get the full use of my hand back. (It is the hand I write/live with. ) So all in all a bit of a nightmare !

I still went to school though and just got the kids to write on the board - they gave me a reprieve on  marking which was good, although I still had to mark the end of year exams which was tear jerking!!Makes me wonder how many mistakes like that are made in hospitals though, the x-ray was probably looked at by some poor bloke who was working a 72 shift or something! Anyway school ..............school is great! And I don't mean that sarcastically!    

When I first started talkng about leaving at Easter so many teachers said 'don't leave..... the summer term is the easiest' and they were so right . No t only is the sun shining an making life generally feel better , I now know all my pupils, have not that many surprises, and have not been getting upset by their apathy to academia just humouring them!My year elevens have wandered off - as usual some went on early 'study-leave' so the build up to their GCSEs was comparatively painless. My year 10s are out on work experience and my timetable seems terribly laid back! Which is superb !My year 7s and 8s have had their end of year exams and they all did so well I am proud. All of my little nurture group  (the ones I got to  plant herbs in their first lesson) managed to get get a level 3 when they had all been unable to get a
level at all at primary school , two of them even got a level 4( surpassing their end of key stage target in year 7 !)I was so pleased! It has made it all seem worth it!

I still find my year 9s a headache though, one of them called me a ' fat c**t ' when I took him outside to gently discuss the fact that hitting another pupil in the head with a heavy text book was not a very good idea. Hey ho at least he didn't hit me, or film me and put me on YOU tube, talking of which I heard in the press a teacher has just been deregistered for showing his 'manboobs' in a lesson and it ending up on You tube! What possessed him to take his shirt off ? Daft thing to do !?! Surely although he only stripped to the waist, stripping is up there along with, I don't know, with threatening kids with anthrax in their purse ( a harassed NQT did that once, no it wasn't me !) and  giving kids a cigarette to puff ( it was a scandal in an independent school),,,,,on the long list no no no NO in the classroom anyway! Inappropiate antics in the classroom! There must be many examples. One has just occurred to me, a recent scandal and no no in the classroom that happened in a school I know well. A supply teacher ignored two pupils (year 10) getting a blow job under the desk from two different girls during his lesson ! How could he not have noticed ???,,,maybe he just thought they were being unusually quiet! The parents were outraged and it was a bit of a hullabaloo. The school is trying to get him deregistered too . I found it a bit shocking, kids are growing up so young now. Although when I told my French teacher friend with the fruity turn of phrase, she recalled a particulary interesting Maths lesson when she was a pupil  where she gave a boy a hand shuffle under the desk, he used to get her  chocolate cake at break apparently!

       
On a different topic , I did finally do it! I handed in my notice! the relief was palpable. The school tried to persuade me against it which was good for the ego , but probably more to do with the Maths teacher
shortage than me , but I was adamant is time to go. Although there are children I will miss I won't miss feeling helpless when one of them runs into my formroom crying with a blackeye, or having to explain the importance of not talking while I am.

I was considering not teaching next year and just having a wander round South America instead. People kept asking me where I was going and not really liking a laid back 'I don't know !' So I pulled myself together decided I needed another school in the UK to be eligible for my golden hello.  I looked last week, I applied and got one! I was offered it on the upper pay scale as well ,which was ace , although they realised their mistake and re-offered on the main pay scale, which was inevitable. It was nice to think I might be earning 37 grand for a while though !

I am over the moon about the new job, is in a different part of the UK and although I am sure it will have it's own set of challenges having toughed it out at my school I feel capable and ready to deal with anything. I will try not to make the same mistakes and to take with me what I have learned ! My  interview lesson was rated as an OFSTED outstanding which was fantastic and I got recent good from an  advanced skilled teacher observation. So I am feeling a lot less like an ineffectual glorified baby sitter. Not that I am saying I have cracked this teaching marlarky I don't think anyone ever really does , I just keep trying to make sure I look at why something went wrong and see how to make it better.  Anyway it is the weekend so am going to finish this up and go write my end of year reports for the little darlings - or maybe I should give myself a break and go down the pub !

Thank you for reading this far, as I do the final lap of my NQT I will try and keep the blogs up! 

Update on sticking out!

First of all thank you oldandrew for your comments and I would like to say I have really enjoyed reading your blog. In fact that is partly the cause of me not writing in a while I logged on to write last week and got absorbed in reading it instead! There was a particular bit about a conversation with a class involving daleks which made me laugh!

But then again I am easily distracted, spent an hour brousing through trying to find inspirational maths quotes for my class display earlier today, even though I have a pile of exercise  books/end of term tests screaming 'mark me, mark me you slack woman'.

Talking of marking though, I was chatting with a Canadian teacher the other day and she said in Canada they do not mark books past year 9 as they are just their notes , and they teach the same lesson five
times over in a day instead of having all the different year groups topics and what not . I thought that sounds so tremendously civilised/easy/less likely-to-take-half-your-life and asked why she was teaching here , she said there are no jobs and people have to go on waiting lists. This surprised me I thought there was a shortage of teachers pretty much everywhere.

Obviously not, but I have noticed recently that Australia is doing a recruitment drive offering a great lifestyle to any secondary teachers who can tick the boxes. I must say I have considered it, am also quite keen on the idea of working in an international school with a great climate. However to be eligble for the golden hello you must be at a British school for a term after finishing NQT . This is  fair enough , but frustrating when you have itchy feet, and went eight grand into debt getting qualified so can't really pass up on getting five grand of it back.

Is the start of a long weekend , and then only four days teaching until we have our two week break, so I am feeling happy relaxed and pretty optimistic about my decision to stay at my school. Was interesting I spent a day at another school in the maths department to pick up tips, and while was chatting in their staff room I found myself defending my school and it's rough reputation and feeling quite loyal.  During that day I watched five maths lessons , which was four different teachers , with four different styles, brilliant! It  is a shame I haven't had a chance to observe much before ( have only seen three in my school since June last year).

The lesson I found most fasinating was a teacher teaching a really badly behaved class, so bad that some of the kids (thinking I was from ofsted)sat there telling me how shit the teacher was, how they learned nothing and how he couldn't control the class. At one point there were paper areoplanes going across the room and he just stood there shouting and getting angrier and angier, he didn't appear to know anyones names which didn't help, I was a bit embarasssed to be honest. What I found so interesting about it though was (not that I like to see someone have a bad time)was that as an observer it is easy  to see it starting to go wrong and how he may have avoided it. He made all the mistakes I have made and was interesting to see it from the outside.

I also saw a teacher who had obviously been doing it for years, had the total respect of the children, really knew his stuff  and his lesson was so enjoyable I felt inspired. He was certainly a 'everyone remembers a good teacher' candidate, his lesson was very learner centered , had different pupils at the board going through the answers. I have already tried a couple of things I saw him do in my lessons and they have gone down well, and got good comments in my observations.

I have been observed twice in the past week, once by both my senior  mentor ( the deputy ) and my mentor, and by an LEA advisor. Oddly enough when my HOD heard both of them were observing me at once  she thought it was a bit much . It did create a rather strange environment, the pupils were so quiet with them in the room it made me nervous. My lesson with  the LEA advisor was a nightmare, I realised halfway through I had left their worksheets in the office , so began teaching what should have been their homework, had the wrong powerpoint..... blah blah all went a bit pete tong. The advisor was
great though he said the behaviour was not very good ( he saw my most troublesome class, one boy sat there just saying 'bollox' intermitently and two girls refused to move seats and kept taking about lesbians)but I my teaching was good with the potential to be excellent!

This cheered me up no end!

Talking of being cheered up, I work with a beautiful nutty french teacher who doesn't half make me laugh. We go out of the school gates and swear and shout and feel better, she keeps me sane. She has decided to become a head and is starting a course, I was telling her about my blog and she was saying she should write one about the trials and tribulations of a single mum trying to become a headteacher. Now that would be worth reading, she has the fruitiest turn of phrase!

Anway it is Easter weekend there is a pint with ,my name on, thank you for reading this far Happy Easter have a great long weekend

Note: owing to website problems there was a delay in posting this blog...

Deadline day!

The deadline day !

Well today is the day I have to hand in my notice, I have had numerous chats , tearful phone calls and two interesting meetings with my senior mentor. I got stopped in the pub the other night by a teacher from my school who told me in no uncertain, drunken forceful terms I was being an idiot and should see the year out so at least my NQT is done - freaked me out a little as I hadn't told him I was quitting .

I spoke to another teacher on Monday his response when I said I was going to quit was 'atta girl, are you coming down the the nuclear submarine(what can I say he is Canadian and hasn't really got  the hang of our slang!)'!?

The question remains though 'to quit or  not to quit' tis it nobler to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous children!? Or should I just stop talking about it, boring  the pants off people around me,  make my decision and get off the bally fence?

So I have decided I am going to stay and see it through, I have  allowed myself to be persuaded because in my heart of hearts I don't  want to let down the good kids, I don't want to feel beaten,and  maybe quite simply, it is time I stopped running away. It is true, I could be making a massive mistake, if that is the case I will do it with gusto and try not to regret it! I think the worst case scenerio is I snap and walk out, or the school fails me, I don't think they could do this as all my observations have been satisfactory with good elements.

The other thing of course is I fail to develop and learn anything, but I think that is unlikely as I am certainly learning perseverence. Thank you for all the people who have made comments - stealing stationary made me laugh out loud! I am sorry I had not read the comments to the blog before the last, before I wrote the last one. I found the comment that it is normal, particulary useful and  comforting and the link, cheers! 

At the moment I am off school, not with stress but a nasty re-occuring respiratory illness , left over from having pleurisy last year. It is true that being at my school has probably had a negative effect on my health and that part of the reason I have been so miserable recently is that I haven't slept properly because of being under the weather, making it harder to cope and so a vicious cycle continues. 

However, I have decided to focus on the positive, there are an awful lot more people living much harder lives with far more grace than me. So I should just pull myself together, and regain my sense of  perspective and humour, it's not all that bad. It is true that as teaching involves such an emotional  investment when it is going wrong it can feel all encompassing but at the end of day life isn't and just should not be that serious!

To that end I am going to end this blog with a joke 

"If there are any idiots in the room, will they please stand up" said the sarcastic teacher. After a long silence, one of the year 9s  rose to his feet.

"Now then mister, why do you consider yourself an idiot?" enquired the teacher with a sneer.

"Well, actually I don't," said the pupil, "but I hate to see you standing up there all by yourself."

The old ones are the best!  I found some good sites for teacher jokes  though www.teacherhumour.com and www.jokesforteachers.com if you need a chuckle   

Melt Down

Melt down

I am sorry I have not written for a while but I have had two melt downs in the last month and it is has become increasingly likely that this will become the blog of a supply teacher/someone who left teaching because they value their general wellbeing .
The first melt down involved an advanced skills teacher coming into my classroom to observe (something I had no advance warning of ) and the children thinking she was from OFSTED . At the end of the nightmare (lesson) the AST said the behaviour of this particular year nine class was the vilest she had ever seen . I burst into tears of frustration after the pupils had gone and said I would rather stack shelves in Safeway that put up with lessons like that , but I had to pull myself together because had three more classes to
teach.

I have a difficult timetable where my first free of the week is on a Thursday and invariably I am covering for the Dance or English teacher during this free anyway. So I really don't need the added pressure of an AST scrutinising me, espeacially one who pops in without warning . Although a lovely charming woman after witnessing this lesson from hell ( hopefully the worst I will ever have to go through, although realistically probably not ) she was not particularly helpful as she said that every strategy she would suggest i did I was already doing, but the class had just degenerated into a situation where there is a group of eight pupils who are actually bullying me. Apparently situations where pupils bully teachers are not that uncommon, friends I have spoken to about it have expressed surprise because I am generally a strong forthright person. However I think anyone can become vulnerable to bullying espeacially in my situation where I am still learning and make mistakes.

On a positive note the AST's   recommendation was I had support in this class which the  school sorted out immediately giving me the assistant key stage manager to babysit the children while I teach them  and the lessons since have been so much better. However I had one lesson where she couldn't be there  the children were vile and I had to isolate three of them. Now we are trying a different approach where we have taken out the eight worst children and are going to drip then back into the class one by one. This is all good for giving me a sense of moving forward with my worst badly behaved class but has just
made me consider why I am at the school at all. The level of support I am being given is excellent, but does leave me feeling inadequate

The second melt down involved my year 11 classs who are mainly just irratating they swear  a lot , talk about their drug taking and can't do maths at all.  Their last source of fun was to repeatedly turning off my interactve white board which was dealt with, but just illustrates how they are children that make my working life the joy it is.  They are the class I refered to in a previous blog as being unable to do a task because they  threw show me boards across the room and wrote on the wall with their markers. Anyway on this particular occasion I had alerted as a pupil, as he had snapped a ruler in half and thrown it at me so I wanted him removed from the lesson. I then asked the teacher who responded to remove another child , some of the other pupils disagreed and started having a go at me.............................blah blah blah

As I am writing this I am thinking the details are almost irrelevent it is same old story the pupils  behave badly I feel frustrated and ineffective and don't want to do it.

I ended up telling the deputy head through floods of tears that I am choosing not to be  treated as badly as I am by the pupils I teach and am handing in my notice. He is great  fellah  gave me tea and told me some stories of when he first started teaching . This all happened on Friday , I have said to my senior mentor I will consider over the weekend ( deadline to leave at easter is 28th february ), the school doesn't want me to leave, mainly I think because Maths teachers are difficult to replace espeacially in a school due to close.

My main reasons for leaving are that the maths department was a new department this school year, the school is closing down and a lot of the pupils haven't had a proper maths teacher for a while as staff sickness is so high( the only Maths teacher from the previous team is absent more that she is there before Christmas she had eight weeks off since Christmas she has had four weeks off  ) .

In all honesty I think that the school should not have taken on an NQT all the new staff have struggled. I am also worried that I will not reach the standards I need to pass my NQT year and am effectively gambling my QTS status which I worked too hard to get so am not prepared to do.

The head of department has handed in her notice and is leaving at easter as despite her 27 years experience as she finds the conditions , behaviour and attitude to learning unacceptable and has decided not to do it anymore. The other new  Maths teacher with over 25 years experience constantly talks about how much she hates it and wants to leave , all in all I would rather be in a more positive environment for the start of my teaching career.

So I have decided to quit, feel good about my decision have told my housemates am probably moving out as it  will be easier to supply in London.  I have been told I will be signed off for this term so will be looking for a school to take me on with a term left as a NQT and that is it !!!

Except it isn't ................................. the new head of department  starting after Easter is a friend of mine ( she taught at my school for 6 years and left in september  to go to another school that didn't work out so is coming back). I went to her party last night and she spent a while trying to persuade me to stay, saying it will be very different with her in the department. She is right, it will be but oh hell I don't know  what should I do !?!?!   

Too much to do!

I was speaking to a friend of mine the other day who teaches at a really good school and is finding it hard. He trained at the school I am working at he did his GTP there and stayed for four years, Interestingly enough he is of the opinion  that teaching there sets you up to being able to deal with anything , but now he is finding he is a good disciplinarian but has never really honed his teaching skills. This he reckons is the reason he is finding his new school hard , this got me thinking. If I get through my NQT where I am, will I have developed anything more than my behavioural management skills? Maybe I could be a liontamer?

Resilience, and the ability to resist panning in the head of a child who repeatedly whines 'idonnnageddit' while refusing to either open the text book or write down or even read the worked example? Maybe if I pulled all his teeth out he'd be reduced to a  forlorn lisp?

I had a parent in tonight, concerned that her son is an A grade student , who is in a top set class but one with behavioural problems so he is not being stretched. I said to her I am doing everything I can, I plan the lessons , always have extension work available , mark the books , try and differentiate by questioning, task and  sometimes outcome, and always try to maintain a purposeful learning environment, but it is hard.

Although I probably have the goodwill and co-operation of about 60%( the average likely to be willing to learn in a class according to Bill Rogers )  of the class there are a handful of characters whose  constant barracking and consequential removal from class always distracts from the full attention I can give the pupils in actually learning. I have set detentions and phoned parents unfortunately not all of them take such an active interest in their off-springs education, but all I can do is try. That is what I do...... I try,  and hope everyday it will be easier,and still I spend lessons feeling like a glorified babysitter, and weeks feeling too tired to do anything except school.

Am I developing as a teacher ?

I hope so, the behaviour is improving in my classes, but it is still a struggle and I still feel like I have no life. Will I end up struggling at a good school because I just have no experience of  children that actually want to learn? I don't know, I am sure every school has a different set of challenges.

I said in my last blog I don't want to be a teacher, although I am up and down like a yo yo with that one, I think it would just be more accurate to say i don't want to lead the life I am leading where I am. On that note I have seen a great job in a great part of the country teaching science, my second subject but first passion. Maybe I should give that a go before chucking in the towel completely? Or would I just be running away?

Oh I don't know , I am knackered, it is Monday night I taught a lot of diabolicals today , we had a fire alarm , so kids were unsettled. In my last lesson I had a child throwing chairs, I talked to him and calmed him down but was a bit sketchy. Then when school finished only one of nine buggers turned up to my evening detention, a nice lad but he talked at me so much I let him go early, so I could meet with the parent mentioned earlier.........and my first free is on Thursday, so I better finish this and get planning.

Can I write a convincing application for that great job? Well the deadline is Wednesday, I have 60 books to mark and 10 lesson plans to write before then and that is not even mentioning the detention forms and school sanction paperwork  have to fill out for the kids I alerted today and I am knackered (repetition for emphasis !)

What should I do ?

Comments and  suggestions welcome ! 

2008 !?! Already !?!

First of All Happy New Year dear readers and thank you for comments to the person who commented on the maths clips here is the link if you ever want to use them !   

So we have been back at school for seven working days , three assemblies, five lots of detentions , two crying fits (one my own), one suspension  and countless protestations from children unable to understand 'stop talking thank you' does not mean just finish your animated retelling of what happen over the weekend. Unfortunately of the seven days I have only been in school for six due to a pupil giving me a paper cut, which was so painful I admit I reintroduced my class to the ‘f word’, because the paper cut was on my cornea - and boy did it hurt. He didn't do it deliberately he was trying to get my attention to sign his report and waved it in front of my face while standing behind me. The oddest thing about it was after cutting my eye he continued to say just sign here even after I had jumped in the air sworn and promptly burst into tears with the shock/pain. The school were great though my classes were covered and I went straight to an opthalmist.
      
All is all it being back at school is not that bad , I am trying to remain positive. I have begun lessons with ‘new year new start show me what you are capable of’ and in the most part it has worked . I even had two different pupils come and apologise for their rotten behaviour last year and say they are determined to make an effort this year, which is great.

However, I think I realized with absolute clarity over the Christmas holidays that I do not want to be a teacher, partly due to what I deal with on a day to day basis at the school. (I seem to have been saying ‘Why stay in this poxy country with these poxy people and teach the spawn of such poxy people’ to far too many people recently. It’s become my own mantra rather like people in proper jobs with normal people manage to say ‘Goodmorninghowareyoualright?’ almost as one long word.)

Did I really study as hard as I did to have teenagers throw things at me? Mainly though because I have not been happy since I started this whole teaching malarkey. I have tried to keep positive and upbeat and follow simple rules like making sure I have three square meals a day, enough sleep and exercise (I think the best cure for having a bad time is to concentrate on the basics).I am simply not happy though, and fear I will become another statistic of someone who trained to teach and decided it wasn't for them. I feel I ought to stick it out and get my NQT, but then if I don't want to teach why bother getting my NQT?

I have been told I should try another school before I leave completely and that is probably good advice but I feel fairly ambivalent about the whole thing. It is winter though the weather is dreary I don't think anyone particularly enjoys January full stop so maybe I should hold off any rash decisions. Many people in my close family are teachers – one in particular has this advice: ‘Sod ‘em! You’re the most important person in your life. Forget changing society. Look at how you’re changing – get out whilst you have skin that’s sensitive to criticism, whilst you still have a net total of good memories rather than bad…’

I’m half expecting a plane ticket to arrive from my Uncle with just one word on the card: ‘Leave!’

Personally I had a bad start to the new year as I was attacked after insisting that I walked home by myself at 4.30 in the morning (I still believe that woman have a right to be able to do that although do concede I can be reckless). It was very scary. He hit my head against a wall and shouted at me, ironically enough when he first came up to me and I stepped backwards he snarled are you scared of me? I said ‘No, Happy New Year’ and then he went mental. Fortunately I got away and ran home (was only a few minutes away), but it has affected me. I spent many years travelling through and living in countries considered to be lawless and dangerous and have only ever been attacked here in UK.

To be frank when that happened and then during the times when I stand in front of insolent children who appear to have no idea how to behave I do think what the hell am I doing here? (Though I use different language…’Return of the F word' – it never left!) I was a lot happier when I had a crappy cooking job in Australia because at least I got to surf everyday and the sun was shining.

Hmmmmmmmmmm well that is not really a good positive blog for the start of 2008 , but at least it is honest and sometimes I think  there isn't enough honesty especially in teacher recruitment adverts! Having read though this though I think another New Year’s resolution is to not take myself so seriously!

That said I’d like to set readers some further reading:

Getting Terrored

How we treat crime (Discuss)

Teaching in England - the true story

 

 

The final blog of 2007!

I survived my first term as a NQT hurrah, myself and the HOD actually highfived in the car park as we walked away, she herself has had more than one point this term where she has considered throwing up her hands - she wasn't too impressed that the old HOD she took over from was coming to the Christmas party either but more about that later.
We made it though with most of our sanity intact, although the last few days were a nightmare. I had the head come into my class on the last day while all the malcontents were actually focused and completing the task ( colouring by numbers found through substitution ) , but he was none to pleased  because yes they were eating chocolate and yes Christmas music was playing.

He looked at me unimpressed and said ' we have a tradition in this school of working right up until the last moment' .I pointed out they were practising the skill of substitution but I almost burst out laughing, none of the diabolical have a work ethic at all, and it is hard enough to get them to hold a pen mid term let alone on a non school uniform day the week before Christmas.

I felt like asking him the colour of the sky in his world.

I tried to teach prime factor decomposition on Monday to a chorus of 'why are you making us do work, we watched a video in our last lesson?’ So I did deviate from the NC a little and planned a nice lesson of watching clips that contain maths from major motion pictures, I gave then all a white board and they had to judge it on mathematical correctness, style and interest level - they started throwing the boards at each other and drawing on the walls with the board markers! So yet another nice idea abandoned , I had to change a lesson half way through a few weeks ago because they were stabbing each other with compasses, the only way they can learn construction now, is through animation on the interactive whiteboard.    

Looking back over the term though it has been a steep learning curve I have learned a  lot and in a way mellowed a lot. I have been practising the positive behaviour strategies, and resisted the urge to shout will you just shut up at the top of my voice more and more . The biggest difference though has been getting to know the kids, I now know all my 190 children's names, I have attended two parents evening and one target setting day so met a lot of their parents too. I have broken up fights and looked after crying children, seen children excluded, worried about kids who smell and whose uniform is never cleaned, calmed down my year 11s before their mocks and got to know my key stage managers very well. I have tried out new ideas and discovered ones that really don't work.

I got my year 7s ( small bottom set class )  to plant a herb garden on my desk ,in their first lesson saying it was sowing the seeds of their mathematical knowledge and each lesson they looked at the growing herbs at different heights and decided which one was them , this worked really well - except it was destroyed by a year 9 and my year 11s are convinced I grow 'da weed ' an idea they  are very fond of as they are sure I am a stoner because one of them saw me smoking a roll up outside Sainsbury’s.
   
Do I feel like I know what I am doing and why I am doing it yet? No. not really I still have a long way to go at the Christmas party a drunken LSA who is also the mother of one of  my year 10s took me aside to say she is concerned her son is not being stretched in my classes, but she thinks I am great and will be a great teacher in about three years. Interesting she said three years I have noticed that teachers who have passed that threshold are  generally happier with their job , although some have the thousand yard
stare ,or  the oversized ego. I am not sure at what point exactly you become the teacher you want to be, all I can say is I will keep thinking about it and try to make each lesson better that the last and most importantly keep my sense of humour.

The Christmas party itself was a laugh, it was held in the school hall which was a bit bizarre , but was a sit down meal served by the senior management team which was good , with copious amounts of wine and all the new staff doing a performance on stage to add a touch of cabaret to the event .   We all laughed, and drank and opened our saucy secret Santa pressies, I counted a least three banana hammocks, a blow up doll and a set of booby juggling balls. At least one thing can be said in a school where the children are challenging there is always a sense of camaraderie amongst the staff. When I talk to friends in other schools about the politics, bitching and backbiting that they put up with I am actually glad I am at my school!

So there we have it the end of a term and the end of a year, the year I qualified and really  started learning, am not entirely sure I am in the right profession but at least it is  interesting. I also see that I am even on the ratemyteacher site - though naturally I won't be linking to the actual entry - I like to stay anonymous!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New year to all you readers

For details of Classroom Management courses please see here

 

 

Getting trollied is now a necessity!

What a week!

A pupil brought me a plant last week.  Said it was to cheer me up. Keep ‘em coming!’ is what I say as I really do need cheering up. So if any readers here...

I used to go and have a curry and then get trollied at the end of the week as a ‘pleasurable activity – now it’s become a necessity. A valve. A way to let off steam – and not all through my mouth! The alcohol helps me forget, to wind down - but the curry makes the world fall out of my bottom.

Anyway enough about me as ‘me’, more about ‘me’ as a Prison Warden ‘teacher’.

This week included parents evening. I had rehearsed 1000 ways to say ‘your Satan’s spawn is a nightmare’ diplomatically . (There must be a book there surely? ‘Teaching the little shites’ or similar.) I’d even practised my fixed smile – the one I’d use if asked about the chances of exam success in the summer. But for once I was pleased about the level of absenteeism. The parents-of-the-shites didn’t come and so I spent the evening talking to the quiet, well-behaved kids parents who are concerned their kids are alongside such unteachables.

Actually that’s not quite true as I did talk to one ring leader's parent who actually said to me you can't expect them to listen to you and do what you say they don't what to look square! Ahhh, peer pressure at its very best … not. Maybe this teamwork is to be encouraged, though. A kind of chain gang mentality?

I had a chat with the Head about all this and he actually suggested that we don't try to teach the whole class because they won't listen but instead set the task and go around giving individual tuition. Good job this isn’t a fee-paying school otherwise there’d be complaints from parents that there offspring weren’t being taught.

We’ve also just had an INSET day. Guess what happened? We spent the day ignoring the fact none of our kids listen long enough to follow instruction let alone knowing what their targets are but we have to do the paperwork anyway .

I notice too there have been articles elsewhere about bullying. (After all, it has been anti-bullying week) Bullying is so rife in my school (a member of my form year 7 wet himself on the way home) I allow kids in form room at lunch and breaks to give them a safe haven. The downside is I get no break.

Is there a plus side? Yep - one of them plays the guitar really well. Maybe we should compose a modern version of Stairway to Heaven’…

There's a teacher who's sure that the critters are bold
And she's buying the stairway to heaven.
When she escapes where she’s at, if the class are all brats
With a glare she can get what she came for.
Ooh, ooh, and she's buying the stairway to heaven.

There's a sign on the wall, graffitti in the hall
The animations will have two meanings.
In the counsellor’s room there’s a woman with bling,
Sometimes our career choice is misgiven.
Ooh, it makes me wonder,
Ooh, it makes me wonder.

There's more but I feel so disillusioned with teaching - I don't mean to be crap am just not very creative when I have had little  sleep and am generally not having a good one .

Busy, busy, busy

No post this week - sorry. I am far too busy with lesson plans and so on. I am beginning to be a little worried though. I am beginning to actually dislike the pupils as 'people'. Maybe this NQT jobbie is not for me - and how many teachers have had such thoughts?