It Shouldn't Happen to a Teacher

Some lessons start really well with the kids settling quickly and everything running like clockwork. Others don't: 'sir are you getting fired?' Had I punched any of my pupils in the face? Nope. Had I slept with any of my pupils. Again, no.

He's based it on one of the assistant heads watching me teaching the class yesterday to give me some tips on behaviour management. The boy in question isn't stupid so knew what it was all about. The funny thing is that he was as good as gold today. For some reason the poor deluded child seems to like me so would probably hate for me to get sacked.

Quite how he'd made the jump to the conclusion that I was on my way out I don't know but it does make you look over your shoulder a little. And it doesn't leave you feeling all warm and fuzzy inside. Next I'll be getting a vote of confidence from the head teacher. I'm sure I'm being paranoid but that doesn't mean they're not out to get me.

I'm full of respect for the senior leadership team at our school but sometimes I think they're from another planet where the world. The deputy head requested during briefing that we should be aiming to get tutor groups down to assembly within five minutes of the registration bell. I'm guessing the reasoning is that this is sufficient time to take the register and to physically walk down to the hall. Perfectly logical, I agree.

However it fails to take in to account the whole idea about moving through the space-time continuum and the pit-fals that stand in your way. Take my morning for example.

Briefing finished at 0845. Registration starts at 0850, so I had until 0855 to get to assembly. I had to walk to the opposite end of the school (to both briefing and the assembly hall) - through the hoards of kids - where I had to cover a registration for a class who's tutor was away. This meant going past the class that I'm an assistant form tutor for and having them asking: 'where are you going? We're here!' I politely and cheerfully explain.

I make it to the room at 0849 (courtesy of some pretty impressive weaving through crowds and 'excuse me'-ing) and find that the room is locked - well it would be wouldn't it? I have to walk past my normal form again in search of a key, and again have them asking lots of questions. I feel a bit harrassed and explain abruptly but as politely as I could manage. I find a key - walk past the form again - and unlock the door by 0851. It's not looking good. I take the key back - once again past my form. Where's their other form tutor got to?

I put the key back and walk past the form for a fifth time, again with them asking questions. This time I tell them to just shut up. I get to the class I'm registering at 0853. I try to log-on to the computer (we have electronic registers) but some lovely person has left themselves logged on and the computer is locked. I use the age-old approach of switching it off and switching it on again, wait for it to load up and then have to log on to two diffierent things before I can get to the register.

I get the class quiet after asking a boy about his exceedingly white trainers and take the register. Technically he should go get a 'red slip' but it's 0857 (how did that happen?) so I prioritise assembly. I take them down to the hall for assembly and the deputy head is waiting at the doors (0901). She makes some smug comment to the class about hurrying up because everyone is waiting. Yeah, like it's their fault. She take the white-trainer boy to one side and I feel like screaming.

We get in to assembly and I realise it's the same one I saw yesterday with my own form. I mime the religious guy's words back at him until the bell goes at 0910. I walk back to teach my year tens feeling utterly frazzled and thinking that I'll never get the last twenty-five minutes of my life back.

The year seven camp was a success. Even though the rain clouds did their best to spoil it for us. It was fascinating to see the kids in a different environment. One child I teach who is normally a pain was brilliant when we went on a trip down a mine. He probably answered more questions to the instructor down there in an hour than he has in maths all year long.

Of course there was the typical sort of school camp stuff: the homesick girl, the boy who loses his trainers and walks round the camp site in bare feet, the boy making fart noises after lights out, the girl who trips over guy ropes - possibly just for the attention, the special ed kid who turns out to be a star when it comes to cleaning kitchens, the year eleven helper with a fan club of twelve year old girls and the teachers either laughing or crying at all of the above.

For my part I was plenty capable of being a disaster and had a nightmare with the group of kids I was in charge of. They were incapable of listening, or at least four of them were and drove me mad. They threw rocks and didn't listen to instructions.

I then made the mistake of allowing them to switch tents for the second night. The camp leader overuled (in a subtle and cunningly genius way that avoided making me look like an idiot - she invented a campsite 'sleeping plan' that prohibited tent switching after the first night) because this would just cause pandamoneum, she did have to make a big fuss at them for being so pesky as to ask to move in the first place though which left me feeling rather embarrassed.

So when we were sat round the campfire that evening I was sat wet-through and fed-up because of being such a pushover and not being able to get eleven year olds to behave better than two year olds. Then two kids came up to me and said: 'you look pretty down sir so we thought we'd come across and sit with you.' Just when you think that children are evil little creatures who are always plotting to make your life a misery they suddenly show an uninhibited level of humanity and maturity. It's the sort of thing that reminds you why teaching is such a great job and that for every kid you wouldn't be too bothered to see falling off the climbing wall there's about five who are absolute stars. Great stuff.

I'm going camping with the year sevens later this week. I'm looking forward to it though obviously there are some aspects that aren't so appealing. I've been making a list of pros and cons about the situation:

pro: I miss teaching the rest of my classes for three days
con: I have to spend three days in a field
pro: There are some exciting activities I'll be involved with
con: Part of it's climbing - I'm scared of heights
pro: It'll be nice to see the kids outside of a classroom environment
con: I'll have to see the kids outside of a classroom environment
pro: I'll gets lots of fresh air
con: The air will stink of sheep
pro: It's a change of routine
con: It's a change of routine
pro: I don't have to do the cooking
con: WE'RE HAVING A CHOCOLATE FREE ZONE
pro: The kids will enjoy it
con: The kids will get over-excited and no one will sleep for two nights
pro: I get to boss the kids around - better than when I was on school camps
con: It'll be my fault if somebody dies
pro: It's nice to be outside in June
con: I bet it rains
pro: It'll be an opportunity to get to know some other teachers better
con: The best looking teacher is camping in the first half of the week

I could go on.

We currently have a lady visiting our department who is spending a few weeks seeing what life in a school is like. She has kids in the school and looking ahead to next year it looks like I could be teaching one of them.

This is all well and good except this lady is really quite attractive, especially for an older woman. 'older' in this instance means thirty-something, apologies to anyone who considers this to be really quite young. The temptation for 'your mum' jokes is immense. Imagine I'm doing a sum on the board and make a mistake somewhere and I hear a: 'sir, you're doing it wrong'. How tempting would it be to come out with 'that's not what your mum said last night'? Or if they're complaining about how long it takes to draw a histogram. Well, you can come up your own punchlines.

It'll be agony.

This lunchtime I had four year sevens turning up for a detention. I got them sat down as usual, but hang on a minute: 'Billy I've not put you in detention. Why are you here?'

'Yeah you did, I was talking on Wednesday'

'No you've already had that detention, you can go'

'Can't I stay? Lunch is so boring.'

What?! If (no, when) I put my year nines in detention they run out of the room as soon as my back is turned. I think I'm going to have to start threatening to not put pupils in detention if they enjoy it so much.

The kid was so determined to stay that I had to get his form tutor to move him - I felt a bit silly saying: 'Billy's turned up for a detention he hasn't got and now I can't get rid of him.' He eventually moved but then spent the next ten minutes charging up and down the corridor with a moronic grin on his face. Some kids you just can't get rid of.

Sometimes things happen in your classroom that you could never have predicted. Today one such occasion occured.

One of my year eights managed to splatter ink all over his face. He went to clean it off but did an awful job and only succeeded in smudging it all over his face.

I know I should respect diversity and equal opportunities but I don't like teaching smurfs.

The head has been going on about some 'professional support' service that is being offered. The idea is that teachers have someone to talk to about the trials and tribulations of being in front of class after class of rude, reluctant and ugly teenagers. There was a little meeting after school today about it so I figured I'd go along and see what it was all about. After reading 'Yes Man' by Danny Wallace I'm trying to say yes more so this was a perfect opportunity to put it to the test.

Now I'd expect a reasonable amount of cynicism but I was one of only three staff there. Considering there's around ninety teachers in the school I wouldn't call it a great turnout. The problem is that teachers aren't the most dynamic bunch really, in spite of what you might see on Teacher Training adverts. And whilst we're on the topic don't be fooled by all those smiling faces in the classrooms. Teenagers don't smile. Ever. Unless they're on crack. Which is presumably what the kids on the advert were spending their fees on.

The meeting was about how techers needed someone to talk to, how they're trying to make it an important part of every school and how it wasn't counselling. I think the difference is that counselling is what you get if you want to sort out any problems, this is a pre-emptive strike to make sure you don't get any in the first place. Kind of like carrying an umbrella on a sunny day.

It all seemed very nice though I'm not sure I'd really want to be jabbering on about my life as a teacher. How self-absorbed/obsessive would that be? Next I'd be keeping a journal of it all! Honestly, can you imagine?

The main thing I got out of it was delaying my photocopying for tomorrow by an hour. I have a knack of jamming it up, in fact I have knack of ruining even the most idiot proof technology. I recently managed to stop a ticket machine in a car park from delivering tickets. Today I was up to my old tricks so when the copier jammed I called it a rude name rhyming with stunt. Stressed? Never.

My year tens are sneaky. In fact I'll rephrase that: all year tens are sneaky.

I was quite happily helping a girl who we'll call Gertrude in the class when one cheeky little (actually he's quite big but behaves like a ten year old) boy interupts and says: 'don't you think Gertrude is little-miss-perfect?'

So I reply: 'Why yes and it's a good thing somebody is around here.'

'You wouldn't be saying that if you'd seen the pictures of her on the internet.'

Now I think I could be forgiven for jumping to the wrong conclusion here. Pictures. Internet. Honestly, what does that make you think? Google Earth? I don't think so. So a I reprimand the little oik for being so disgusting. He then acts all shocked and talks about her eating lots of cake and it being on facebook. Hmmm, I think that's 1-0 to him, though on aggregate I still think it's about 10-1 to me. There's only one response in this situation: 'Stop being so silly and get on with your work.'

In the town where I work there is a branch of a well known supermarket - the one with a greater number of motivating factors for shopping there. They run a scheme where if you buy enough petrol from them they give you a five pound voucher for use in store. This week I reached a sufficiently high amount of environment-wrecking for them to give me my reward. So today I went in. I was apprehensive of bumping into people from school. The head count was one year ten I teach who i really don't get on, another year ten I don't teach, a PE teacher I've never ever spoken to and the head's secretary.

The big question was would I dare to buy any alcohol or would I wuss out and go to another supermarket later on. As I was wandering down the beer aisle I had to pass a pupil. Oh well, in for a penny in a for a pound, if you're seen even looking at beer chinese whispers will turn it in to much more anyway. I imagine it'll be round school on Monday that I was seen on a park bench swigging whisky from the bottle, possibly with my head in a bin and tied to a farmyard animal.

Our school has a community service approach to detentions. Pupils who are kept back at the end of the day are made to clean desks swipe off graffiti and are generally put to good use.

The trouble was that after today where my room was cleaned I actually found extra graffiti on my wall. I don't think they'd really understood the instructions.

Teenagers like to try to embarrass their teachers and I had two such instances today: 'what is a transexual?' and 'is the plural of penis peni?' I consider myself as being someone who generally turns a very rosy colour at anything to do with sex, reproductive organs or even remotely related to body parts, even thumbs, but as a teacher you've got to look them straight in the eye and say:

'A transsexual is someone with both male and female reproductive organs'. Wrong. I'm such a geek I looked it up later - it's a good job I don't have to teach too much sex education because there'd be some very confused kids out there. Whilst we're on the subject, a woman can't get pregnant if you do it standing up right?

And: 'I think the plural is just penises'. Which is good enough though penes is also correct and I think sounds a little more comical. Though I'd be hard pushed to think of a situation where it'd be required. How often do people spend time discussing more than one penis? Personally it's rare I'll even discuss that many.

This half term I turned in to a report writing automaton. It's hard work, especially when you're trying to find something positive to say about each and every pupil so that their parents don't break down in floods of tears when they read what a pain in the neck their son is and they realise what an awful job they've done raising their him. I've even started talking in very measured tones: 'This is meal is okay, to improve it further you could arrange the vegetables to show your working. Also please try to come to the dinner table with a pen and your exercise book.'

We have to have them checked out by our heads of department to make sure we're using something approaching half decent grammar and haven't written that Bobby from year eight is a little s***. This has been done by email so my inbox now reads: 'Year 10 Reports',' Reports!', 'Reports,reports,reports!', 'Reports' and of course 'more reports'. It's a harrowing experience reading an email highlighting all the stupid mistakes you've made. You start to have a little sympathy for the kids whose books you fill with red crosses week-in week-out.