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.