It Shouldn't Happen to a Teacher

On Friday afternoon the year sevens were having a street party as part of a humanities project. As we were timetabled to have year sevens for Maths period five this meant some of us would have to cover the humanties teachers who were occupied with the street party.

Our Head of Department was asked which teachers to put down to cover these lessons during one lunch in the Maths office and as there were no volunteers he chose us on the qualification of not being in the room at the time, one of whom being myself. The other teachers just kept their heads down while this conversation was going on. When the covering teachers found out later that we would be teaching Geography, Drama and RE on Friday afternoon we had a good laugh at the cheeky manner in which we were selected. I think one my colleagues was a bit annoyed but we have a job to do and a teacher is supposed to actually teach not sit around drinking cups of tea.

Cover lessons aren't exactly fun because it's always a little outside your comfort zone. For instance I know very little about the Bam Earthquake, except that it's rather an unfortunate name for a place to suffer destruction in that manner. And losing PPA (Planning, preparation and assessment) time can be a annoying, but if you're scheduled to teach anyway that doesn't come into it.

However I was grateful when the Head of Department suggested the remaining maths teachers could relieve us halfway through our covers to share the load. As I run a club after school a little extra time on Friday afternoon is always welcome. Unfortunately there was one refuse-nik who didn't see why she should have to do anything when her name wasn't down on the official cover list. Which is a bit poor seeing as she'd actually be gaining half a free anyway. I think the Head of Department leant on her a bit and in the end everything was done very fairly. It's amazing how reluctant some teachers are to actually go into a classroom and teach.

My ears seem to have been burning this week, and it's not as the result of a unfortunate incident with a Bunsen burner during a science cover lesson.

The Assistant Head gave me an almighty fright this morning at break when he asked me what I'd done to one of the girls in year ten. I stammered slightly as I thought up a defence of 'you can't prove anything' or 'I only accidentally bashed her head with my elbow as I was walking past' before he elaborated.

'She's in love with you'. Oh that's much better, no wait. It's a million times worse, what?!

'No, not like that. She was just telling me what a good job she thinks you're doing' I'd have thought he could have opened the conversation with that comment instead of giving me a heart attack.

I'm glad that my pupils feel the need to tell Senior Leadership that they're enjoying my lessons, though I did have to double check that she wasn't being sarcastic. It's nice to know that I must be doing something right, even if I always try to keep in it perspective as being a popular teacher isn't necesarily the same as being a good one.

PS: No I didn't bribe her.

My year eight class normally has fourteen pupils, however by the end of today's lesson we had considerably less than that.

1128: One of the girls informs me that her friend is off sick and won't be in today. Thirteen left.

1129: A girl comes in and asks for some work because she's on reception monitor duty this morning. Twelve left.

1133: A latecomer arrives, I ask him if his fellow footballer is with him, apparently he was here earlier but mysteriously disappeared before the previous lesson never to be seen again. Eleven left.

1155: The latecomer is doing very little work and I warn him that if he doesn't do it now he'll have to stay at lunch to catch up. 'No I won't' he says and walks off down the corridor. Ten left.

1205: One of the girls is taken for her reading practice. Nine left.

1225: He-who-has-ADHD has to leave to take his tablet before lunch. Eight left.

1226: One of the girls with a disability leaves early as normal so she doesn't have to negotiate busy corridors. Seven left.

All-in-all a successful lesson.

Given the sudden popularity of shag bands it's inevitable that they are banned at school. Conveniently no new legislation needs to be passed as jewellery isn't allowed anyway. So no one has to reprint and laminate a new uniform code.

Even so pupils still try to wear them and they are often a hot topic of discussion. I haven't figured out what each means and I'm not all that interested but the basic idea is that if someone breaks one that you're wearing it means they're prepared to do or have done to them a variety of different sexual acts, dependant on the colour.

When one boy was taking his off after I'd seen him wearing them and one broke it took every ounce of restraint I possess to not ask him if it meant he had to go fuck himself.

I'd love to have just one day at school where there were no holds barred.

When pupils are rude towards you you have to take action, especially if they do it in such a way as to create a scene in the classroom. However there are occasions when pupils come out with such good comebacks that you have to admire their quick-wittedness. I was stood at the front of my year eleven lesson and needed one boy to turn and face the front.

'Peter, look this way please'

He turns round and under his breathe says: 'Why would I want to look like that'.

Touche. You've got to admit that's pure class. I have a good relationship with the boy and seeing as I don't think anyone else heard it I was happy enough on this occasion to let him have his little joke.

Our school is in the process of appointing a Learning Coach, which unfortunately bears no resemblance to a Mobile Library or aFun Bus and is the type of coach that trains people. Part of this process involves the Deputy Head watching the candidates watch a lesson.

This means they need some lessons to watch and one of my friends from the English department had been chosen for this dubious honour. In briefing this morning she was weighing up whether to go ahead with her original plan. As part of the scheme of work her year ten class had been watching parts of the film Stand By Me. In this lesson they would look at the ending, which features an amount of swearing. My friend was concerned about turning the air blue by showing part of a 15 certificate film to some fourteen year olds with the Deputy Head in the room.

My advice was to go for it based on the logic that if you're going to get in trouble you might as well make it for something good, rather than not making your learning objectives clear enough. Besides our school has this whole policy on CREPE, which yet again is not as good as it sounds as it features no pancakes; CREPE stands for Challenge, Risk-Taking, Engagement, Progress and Enjoyment. So by showing a video full of swearing to the Deputy Head she would certainly be taking a risk.

I look forward to hearing from her how it went tomorrow morning.

Friday afternoons aren't the easiest time to teach, in fact I doubt they're the easiest time to achieve anything. I have friends who work on flexi-time and around about the time I'm starting my final lesson of the week they're settling down with a pint.

It's difficult to come up with a suitable lesson for this time of the week. You can't just write it off, and some of the 'light' activities, such as colouring in, often make it even harder. With my year sevens this week I chose to do about Fibonacci Sequences. If the pupils are sufficiently motivated then they quite enjoy it. A Fibonacci Sequence is one where you add the previous two numbers to get the next one. For example 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13... I approached it using Fibonacci's Rabbits which starts with putting two hypothetical rabbits in a field and doing the maths behind 'at it like bunnies'. I won't go in to all the details here but I got pupils putting bits of card on the board to represent the rabbits and everything was going swimmingly.

For the main activity in the lesson I gave them a sheet with some problems about this kind of sequence. They were so keen and worked really hard on it. I had pupils punching the air when they managed to figure some of the more difficult ones out and when I gave one boy the extension sheet he let out a 'woohoo!' It was going well and I was enjoying helping them so I hadn't really noticed the noise level rising with their enthusiasm.

Next thing I knew the Deputy Head walked in, she was 'on call' to assist if any problems arose in lessons. I have respect for all senior members of staff because their experience far outstrips my own, but that doesn't mean I have to like them. She wandered round for a few minutes looking like a wet Sunday afternoon, sucking the life and energy out of the room. She was about as welcome as a drunken punch-up at a wedding. The next thing I know and she's stopped the class and said:

'I've just been stood watching for a few minutes and most of you are working hard but there are three or four people messing around. I'm going to stand here until I'm happy you're settled on your work'

My mouth was nearly bleeding I was biting my lip so hard. It'd be poor form to tell the Deputy Head to piss off in front of thirty eleven year olds. It's hard to know where to begin with what's wrong with her little speech. As a Deputy Head she has a responsibility to ensure that the pupils at the school receive the best education possible, but that doesn't mean she should just charge in to a classroom like a bull in a China shop.

I'd say three or four pupils not completely focused compared to twentysix hardworking ones at three o' clock on a Friday afternoon is pretty good going. A lot of offices would like that ratio. When a lesson is going badly the 'on call' teacher can be a major help. This wasn't such an occasion. One of the Assistant Head's is highly skilled at coming into a classroom and getting a good read on how much intervention is required, he puts the Deputy to shame in this regard.

I wonder whether she was actually trying to improve the learning experience of the pupils or whether she was just out to show herself as big and powerful in front of pupils who are still relatively new to the school. What she did achieve was to completely undermine me.

I was about to stop in order to start the plenary and she really put me off my stride, so in reality she had a negative impact on the quality of the lesson. I cannot see a single way in which the pupils in that class benefitted from her presence, which is the bottom line as far as I can see.

On a personal level I'm so frustrated by the incident. I've had a very positive week. I've taught some really good lessons, I've got my pupils across all classes interested in the work and where necessary I've bashed a few metaphorical heads together. I even had the Head telling me about an incidental comment she'd heard from a parent who was slagging off just about every teacher in the school but was impressed with me. It's annoying that the week had to finish on such a sour note because of someone who really should know better.

A quote I remember reading once is that life in the classroom is a battle, not between teacher and pupils but together against the things that stand in the way of learning. There's something seriously wrong when one of those things is the Deputy Head.

Modern day teenagers are very aware of the need to keep hydrated and like to use this as justification to get what they want. They often ask to go for a drink during lessons, which isn't allowed. If they're organised enough to bring a bottle of water with them before they're welcome to drink it but if not then it's just tough. The same applies to me if I happen to leave my water bottle in the Maths office so it's perfectly fair.

One of my year tens asked why it was okay for me to drink my water in the lesson. Aside from the above I came out with:

'Because I have to do alot of talking'

'But sir, so do we!'