It Shouldn't Happen to a Teacher

Most GCSEs are modular these day so quite often year tens will have to miss one lesson or another to complete an exam. This morning when I should have had my class the majority of them were sitting a Biology exam. The majority being twentynine out of thirtyone. I merged my group with the set below and took them to a computer room for maths game related fun. There were some pupils I'd taught before in the other class and I was disappointed to see that one of my year nines from last year had become a bit of a madam. As teachers we always seem to be trying to make the boys grow up a bit, while at the same time doing everything we can to prevent the girls from doing the same.

The other teacher was there for the first half of the lesson with me taking over later on. This was a mistake on my part as we hadn't realised the exam only lasted fortyfive minutes so fiften minutes before the end I suddenly had sixty fourteen and fifteen year olds under my command. I can barely manage to control one class let alone two. It wasn't too much of a problem though as year tens are capable of just standing round and talking quietly, unlike year sevens who seem to be on a constant mission to expend the same energy as a star going supernova.

Apparently the exam itself had been fairly tough going, though my pupils didn't use quite so many words to describe it. The Maths exam they'd had last week was much better. I think it must be down the standard of teaching they'd received. And making the exams too short to fill a lesson doesn't help either.

It's all a bit quiet at school at the moment, with not a lot of incidents to report. It's just a lot of report writing and exam preparation. All very dull. Hence my blogging efforts have been equivalent to some of my year ten boys' efforts at Maths. You could argue they're trend setters, blazing a trail of previously unheard of levels of laziness but I think they just CBA*. To bring you up to date here are the main news stories of the past month or so.

Coaching

Coaching has reached the Maths department like a dose of Swine Flu. The idea is that we all watch someone watching someone else teach so that we can become effective reflecters on our practice. It sounds a lot of nonsense but gives you a bit of encouragement of watch other teachers teaching. Yesterday I got see a lesson on equations, which gave me food for thoguht on how to approach this topic.

Exams

My year elevens sat their final Maths exam on Monday. We had a breakfast revision session immediately prior to this and I was alarmed by the number of pupils who came in saying they hadn't done any revision: 'sir don't say anything but I haven't done any revision.' I followed the girls instruction and ignored her completely.

Camp

It's getting close to the camping season. Once again I'm off to Scotland with the year nines. Last year was highly entertaining and I've every reason to expect the same again this year, though I think I'll avoid the hair straighteners this time.

Inter-form challenge

My form continue to lead the way in year eight as being the most-successful form. Our most recent competition was designing a poster discouraging the dropping litter. Some of my boys took the Fascist approach of 'Drop it and Die' with guns being pointed at heads. In some ways it's distrubing, but at least they were doing it ironically. I think.

*Can't Be Arsed

Thursdays are an easy day for me. Due to a timetabling system that's presumably borrowed from a bus company I have three frees all at once. It allows me to make sure I'm ahead of the gaming with planning and marking and catch up on any other little jobs. It's also opportunity for to cause chaos around the school.

I emptied my room of any coats that have been left behind. I'd been a bit slack with this recently so had quite a pile, earning me a disapproving look from the person in charge of lost property. We really should take things down as soon as possible but quite often is something gets left in your room the pupil comes back for it anyway. To avoid further scorn I'll be a bit more pro-active about it next time.

From there I went to do some photocopying, during which time I managed to give the copier a serious error. Apparently this is only the second time that particular machine has had an error - as opposed to a paper jam, which happens qutie regularly - so I was quite honoured.

Periods two and three I actually had to teach some classes. Though seeing as they were just doing their end of year - yes, it's that time already - exams, it wasn't excitement central.

In the afternoon I was interviewing some pupils about behaviour. I'm attending these meeting about Behaviour for Learning, which is to do with coming up with a policy on behaviour rather than just discussing the behaviour itself. Impressively they haven't just descended into a whinge-fest about everythign that goes wrong in the school. Curiously the pupils felt that a good shouting at was far more effective than a removal or a detention.

I was just settling down to mark some of the tests from the morning when the phone rang and I had to do a last minute cover. The Assistant Head was speaking to the police about a fight that had taken place the previous day so needed someone to take his year ten citizenship lesson. He put Question Time from the BBC i-player up on the projector and left me to it. It was all about the expenses scandal and after a few minutes I'd lost interest myself. There's a time and a place for Question Time and it isn't in a sweaty classroom at around three in the afternoon. Seeing as they were pleasant enough children they were at least capable of sitting and talking quietly without turning the chairs and tables upside down, though I still couldn't help but check the time every five seconds. Their teacher apologised to me later for putting me in such a situation.

To finish the day I attended the aforementioned Behaviour for Learning meeting. All of which fun and games meant I took a huge stack of marking home with me to complete in the evening, not something I had been expecting to be doing. I can't help but feel that somehow all the marking would have been done already if I'd been teaching a full day's worth of lessons. Such is life in a school.

Teenagers aren't renowned for their high levels of tact. If they think something it's more than likely that two seconds later they will say it. It's all part of the richy tapestry that makes life in the classroom so entertaining.

My year nine class aren't about to set any records for achievement so they have a Teaching Assistant attached to them, which is just as well as even though they're a nice bunch of kids - for the most part - they're not always easy to control. Especially as I'm a bit of a soft touch so need all the help I can get.

Yesterday afternoon the TA was supporting a pupil doing a GCSE exam so couldn't be in the lesson. At the end of the hour one of the girls says to me, 'I think we've been really good today... seeing as Miss wasn't here'. It's not the sort of comment that does wonders for my self-esteem but she had a point. I always try to keep a sense of perspective about things. If before I'd started teaching I'd been told to expect a low-ability year nine class to behave so well on a Friday afternoon I'd have been ecstatic.

I'm not above being blunt myself. My year elevens all have these books they're getting their friends and teachers to sign and Friday was my turn. In some cases it was easy to think of things to write: 'thanks for all your hard work', 'you make me laugh', 'it's been a pleasure to teach you' and lots of other cliches. In some cases it was harder. One girl had been sent to my class from another group because she'd had a catastrophic falling out with her previous teacher so I'd put 'you were much nicer than I expected. I'm glad you joined this class.'

The hardest was trying to find something nice to write about a girl who'd been nothing but trouble ever since I started teaching her. I put something ambiguous like 'it's been entertaining. Good luck in the future.' She looked disappointed that I hadn't written more. I think she has the delusion that even though she's a pain I have a bit of a soft spot for her. I really don't. She was lucky I wasn't completely honest with her because then I'd have just written 'you're fat and I don't like you.' Believe me, it was tempting.

My year nines are immature. This isn't exactly a revelation as children are allowed to be immature sometimes, it goes with the territory. On occasions though it makes life difficult.

'Sir, what's a prostitute?'

'You saying my Mum's a whore?'

Later in the same day with my year tens:

'Sir Fred drew a penis in my book'

'Is that yours Fred?'

Unfortunately that question could be interpreted two ways, what I meant was did he draw the picture, but unsurprisingly my pupils took it the other way.

All in a day's work.