I think our school is a nice little community for the most part. There are many staff that I'd call friends and those I don't know very well seem pleasant enough and easy to get on with. So it's very disappointing when people start back-biting and bickering. We all bitch from time to time. It's one of the less-appealing aspects of human nature but sometimes it's a bit ridiculous.
Recently there was an epipen training session. I went because a boy in my form is anaphylactic. He's going on camp and seeing as his allergy is nuts - as in he's allergic to nuts, not he's just making it up because he's a bit nutty - it was a good idea to get some training in. If I do have to stab him with a needle I'll just imagine he's one of my year nines because it'll make it so much easier to do. Though I will have to remind myself to take the needle out again.
The school nurse ran the session but apparently one of the cover supervisor/TA people is supposed to be in charge of organising such things. Anyway the school nurse ended up swearing at this TA person for reasons that aren't particularly clear. In an act of utter cowardice this TA then somehow turned the blame onto me by saying I'd been asking her about the training. This was a complete fabrication as I already knew about the session and quite how this then made the school nurse mad at me I'm not entirely sure. In my view someone ought to just bang their heads together. Seeing as their both medically trained at least they'd be able to treat each other afterwards.
Anyway the TA came to see me to tell me what she'd done and to warn me if the nurse starts randomly swearing at me then that's the reason. I think it's a bit pathetic that someone working at a school would behave in the same way as one of the (less mature) children we have responsibility for. I told her not to worry about it as I'd rather just stay out of such idiocy and aggression. It's tempting to moan about this to other staff because I'm not impressed but it'd be rather two-faced of me to do so. If I was going to get angry about it I should do it to her face not act like a ego-maniac on a reality TV show and just bicker behind someone's back.
In further acts of aggression everyone is very tense about the timetabling for next year. There's lots of suspicion about certain people getting a greater control over which classes they teach than others. Maybe some people do get above their station at this time of year but we're here to do a job and teach the classes we're given. I've already been given a sneak preview of my sets for next year and am looking forward to the challenge they'll pose. I'll have different types of groups to the past two years. I'll have a top set year ten who will need some serious stretching and I'll have a bottom set year nine who I'm sure will be hard work. Given that just a few months ago there was lots of talk of redundancy I'm just grateful that I'll have any classes at all.
