First day back at school, and it already feels like we've never left. Kids were hyper (to be expected, I guess, what with Halloween and all....oooooh scary!). Year 7 PE first lesson - cross country. "T" came first in the race last time, but is being very seriously badly influenced by "K" (a right madam - anger management classes and everything!) and thus the pair of them decided to walk the whole way round and come in last. Doing an extra lap didn't seem punishment enough, so they may well have to run it again. Don't know what they're complaining about - one cross country lesson per half-term is nothing compared to cross-country every week. In tiny PE shorts and vest. In the snow. Softies.

Feeling my age when I started lecturing the Year 11s against smoking and causing Halloween havoc. They think I am about 40, I love it.

Year 7s last lesson were absolutely off their nut. Not a good lesson to bring out scissors, glue, complicated nets etc. Technical difficulties let me down, then I managed to pull a blind off the window (don't ask). Kids were very confused and hyper, almost completely lost the lesson; they just kept chatting away and getting outta their chairs and just not listening, was really frustating. Luckily managed to save it towards the end, but not impressed with myself, need to get control of those monkeys and quickly.

Just as I was feeling really crap about the whole teaching lark, I marked the Year 8 half-term homework. Ever since Little S has been on report, she's really pulled her socks up, and put so much effort into her work that I've been really pleased. Her homework was perfect - correct answers, working out, even did the extra questions! I was inspired to call her guardian to tell her how well S is getting on (unfortunately couldn't get through, but will persevere). Brought hope back to my heart!

Had a laugh in kick aerobics. Was impressed by the contrast when the instructor's tape broke and so we had to wait two minutes. 25 ladies just chatted quietly and waited patiently. Complete opposite to my Year 7s, who go bananas when not occupied for a mere 10 seconds. Oh well.

Finally, had my day put in perspective by Wiltshire with her articles on Mathare (here and here). Reminded me to stop complaining and be happy. But I'm still convinced teaching is a vocation - who would do it otherwise?

Teacher training days are a gift sometimes. What a way to ease yourself back into school...a day of learning about interactive whiteboards (IWBs) and eating free food, yum yum. I think it might just be the IT geek in me, but the man doing the presentation was amazing, so entertaining. He used to be a maths teacher and knew exactly how to keep us engaged. The best thing he did wasn't to do with IWBs at all tho - he had this book called the "holy bible" and he was telling a story with it, and somehow managed to make the pages go from blank, to having black outlines of images, to being full colour pictures - it was so cool, especially cos I still can't figure out how he did it! I hope one day I can make my lessons as entertaining as his presentation (not to mention be able to do as much with my IWB as he could).

Went to the "Thriller" masterclass at the gym; realised I'm still ridiculously unco-ordinated when it comes to dancing to routines, but actually not a bad dancer. Got slightly obsessed with my image in the mirror, to the detriment of my dancing obviously, but still bags of fun. Decided to do no work tonight, will sort it out tomorrow.

Also decided that now is the time to finally get working on all those skills I've wanted for ages, so will start doing some research on piano lessons and also on how to create and interpret horoscopes (using birth charts the traditional ancient way). Random skills, yes, but I'm interested!

Ooooh and finally, the new head of sixth form approached me today and asked me if I'd be interested in teaching A-Level Sociology. Having had no experience of learning an Arts A-Level, let alone actually teaching one, of course I jumped at the chance.

Right, bed time. Patently will be dark when I have to wake up tomorrow, and also dark when I leave school, great. Roll on Christmas, only 7 weeks to go!

What's the best thing to do when you've got looooooads of work to do? That's right, mess about on your blog. Wise decision, very wise.

So, what're the highlights I hear you ask? Well, TF reunion on Thursday was good stuff, alas drank far too much and ended up in Farringdon (though managed to stay out of Fabric, so one "good girl" point to me). Even did the outrageous and let uni friends meet teaching friends (shocking, I know!). It's all part of making everyone friends with everyone...I will reach my goal eventually.

Friday night in Oxford was epic - I love my Furies and I love my Keble and, of course, I love my goooooose! Was so much fun, I honestly had forgotten how much of a laugh we all have together. Great to catch up just generally, and oh the drinking games, the fun never stops! Did a spectacular good deed by inviting a lost looking girl to come sit with us in the pub while she waited for a her friends. Undid my good deed by being a complete prick to the bouncers at PT (will apologise to them when I'm next up). Drank far far too much again, and worst of it all was that we were back in the goose less than 12 hours later and I was still in the same clothes (oh dear indeed). Oh well, it's a one off. Loved watching Keble - Teddy Hall play on Sat morning today; although really shoulda been to that lunch back in Essex, whoops!

Spent most of yesterday hungover, spent most of today at a wedding in Maidenhead. Was up at 8am to get ready (saris take faaaar too long....can't wait for the "throw on" sari to be invented!). Lovely wedding - first one I've been to where the couple are Sinhalese and Tamil, thus two weddings one after the other. Sinhalese wedding was cool - they have acrobatic dancers in amazing costumes to parade the bride and groom, it was wicked cool! Sadly you had to be quiet during that ceremony, whereas in the Tamil ceremony there's loads of music so we can chatter away. Was weird though, sitting in that wedding, cos I kept thinking how expensive weddings are (most of them are £15k+ nowadays) which is so strange to when you think how poor people back in Sri Lanka are, and then how rich and decadent we all are over here.

Another strange thing was how my folks have started talking about my wedding, which is alarming in so many ways it's unreal. I accidentally knocked over a flower display at today's wedding - I'd like to think it was in shock when the conversation turned to my future matrimony. How can they be thinking about this, I'm still a kid! Well, I act like one anyway!

My lil cousin told me that her Mum wouldn't let her bring her dollies to the wedding - her dollies named Katie and Matthew! Texted Jonno and told her - I mean, what are the chances? And also what are the chances of me losing my yoghurt bet? Pretty not slim to none it seems. It's in the post Mouchio.

Went to choir rehearsal, along with the lovely Jade - well done Jade, finally someone who can read music and then actually sing what it says! Hope you'll be coming back!

Aaargh, why is half-term over already? Enough rambling. Big "Yo"s to the girls reading this at work, to my Furies and Disney gypsies, and to anyone else procrastinating.

I was in the middle of planning lessons on pie charts for my Y11s, but I had to stop because I'm just so overwhelmed by how clever they are! What an amazing idea - get a pie, cut it into different slices, use the size of these slices to represent people's favourite soap operas (18 out of 60 people liked Neighbours the best, giving a slice of 108 degrees, good stuff). The only thing that could make it better were if pie charts were actual pies, which you could eat after you'd absorbed all the useful statistical information.

I was reading another teacher's blog on TES the other day called "How Not To Teach". This blog is great; just when I feel I've reached the peak of my jadedness, Mr Read proves week after week there is so much further to go. He is very funny though, I appreciate funny. And further, his blog is being published as a book, which got me thinking, maybe if I actually made my blog funny and interesting (as opposed to a big old rant) then maybe someone will pay me to write it? On Neighbours (my other great source of knowledge...the first being Wikipedia) Boyd and Janae were raking it in by putting a webcam on their blog and running "dancing Toad" competitions. Maybe this is a potential money spinner for me too...I mean, who wouldn't want to try and get a picture of my "dancing Dad"?

I have also become even more obsessed with fruit teas, going to the extreme length of purchasing tea with my own money rather than "borrowing" from the gym. It's just so pretty watching the colours diffuse from the tea bag into the hot water, although clearly those colours come from chemicals, as opposed to healthy, wholesome, natural ingredients. Oh well.

This afternoon we're having an epic Teach First drink-a-thon. I reckoned it should be the "monopoly pub crawl", but fear that we will be parked in Wetherspoons all afternoon. Oh dear (she says gleefully).

And finally, the songs I love at the moment (almost as much as I love italics!):

John Legend - Save Room
Fish Go Deep (feat. Tracey K)- The Cure & The Cause
Cassie - Long Way To Go
Chamillionaire - Grown and Sexy
And the whole "Step Up" soundtrack.

My gosh, I'm one of those embarrassing teachers who's "down with the kids". Or at least thinks she's "down with the kids". Cringe.

4 days into half-term (if you count the weekend) and my body is in shock. Getting enough sleep, enough food, enough alcohol(!) and not enough exercise and it doesn't know what to do with itself. Consequently it has decided it is injured/sick; my hamstring seems to be pulled and I am getting sniffley (I even cut short fun and games tonight to rest up, how bizarre). My only explanation for this is that my body has been deprived of luxuries for so long that now it has them, it can't cope. Teaching should come with a health warning.

In other news, it seems a growing number of Forest kids have been sucked into the vacuum that is Deloitte. Soon they will take over the world and everyone I know will be an accountant. Does it make me miss it? Hmm, ask me in a few months.

Mejij informed me today that she is being referred to as a nignog by one of her team-mates. She says she doesn't mind this banter cos it's all in good fun, which got me wondering whether it's ok to be racially offensive "if you're just joking"? I know that I, for one, do it all the time, and have often had to bite my lip at school cos offensive banter is always at the tip of my tongue. I hope it's not a symptom of some deep underlying prejudice (clearly any therapist would say that it is, but what do they know?)

I am much better at the political correctness when it comes to homosexuality. I'm part of what must be the moral minority, who try very hard not to refer to things that annoy them as gay e.g. "dang it, my car's been towed again, that's so gay". I even try and stop my kids staying things like that, although I'm not always immune to turning a blind eye. But is it really politically incorrect to say things like that, I mean, "if you're just joking"?

My kids always say to me "but everyone says it, Miss". But if people started saying "dang it, my car's been towed again, that's so nignog" there'd be an absolute riot (there would be at school anyway - any excuse for a riot!). Maybe I'll say it to see what happens. Or maybe not.

Ooooooh yes, it's half term! Who'd thought I'd make it eh?

This week was really good (maybe cos it was only 4 days long...). Am getting much better at coping with the little monsters, even being firm enough to put the big old Y11s in their place :)

Open Evening on Thurs nite was a roaring success - 250 people! Given that in the past years turnout has been pretty low ("three men and a dog" according to the Head of Maths), this was great. I loved it anyway, seeing the school really putting the effort in to sell itself, and also how enthusiastic everyone was being. Reminded me of the good old Forest School Open Days...nothing like a bit of exaggeration here and there to persuade parents we really are the place to be(!)

Training day on Fri was a bit of a waste of time, but some of it was useful. The session on functional literacy was poignant - never really thought about kids being able to read words, but not being able to comprehend them at all. Was clock-watching through most of it, drinks, o'clock couldn't come soon enough!

Anyway, half-term has officially begun and my twin goals of breaking the 4km in 20 mins and participating in multiple lash parades are soon to be recognised. Good stuff.

Still can't believe I've made it. Not that I ever had any doubt...

Yay - my Year 8s finally understand percentages after 10 HOURS of lessons on it. 10 HOURS! I didn't even think there would be 600 mins worth of teaching to do with percentages. Evidently I was wrong.

Boo - my Year 11s don't understand how to convert between units e.g. go from centimetres to metres. It didn't help that I told them that there were 100m to a km, whoops. Fingers crossed this doesn't take 10 hours.

Yay - last lesson with Year 7s tomorrow, which means we will have fun. Obviously the definition of fun will vary....my conception being mental maths riddles, who wants to be a maths millionaire, or maybe a bit of fraction bingo. Aaah yes, maths fun is the best fun.

Yay - I have finished the rubbish book. The ending was rubbish too. Am now reading Small Island by Andrea Levy. Within the first 70 pages this book is already so much better.

Quote:

There were sixty pupils in the first class I had to teach. Sixty children fidgeting like vermin behind rows of wooden desks. Sixty nappy-headed, runny-nosed, foul-smelling ragamuffins...I was used to children from good homes..In that school no child ever wiped their running nose across their sleeve before raising their hand high into the air and waving it around like a semaphore. No child would chant "Miss Roberts, Miss Roberts", over and over until I could not recognise my own name. And no child ever subtracted five from ten and made the answer fifty-one.

Infinitely better. Maybe because I can empathise...?

In other news, I think that if I can hack teaching I might become a spy. Also, it'd be awesome if the cast of Neighbours and Hollyoaks got together to make a feature length epic. The plots would be amazing, oh and the colloquialisms...

My favourite line from today's Ramsey St came from Dylan: "Why don't you just build a bridge and get over it?". Guess who'll be using that in school tomorrow?

Having been in the city on Weds and Thurs night, I realise how much quality drinking and money and "not stressed" times I am missing out on. Despite hating Canary Wharf cos it looks so fake, there still seems to be a lot of rather jolly graduates around there. I wonder how long it'll be before I officially regret my teaching decision? Everyone knows I'm driven by money :)

This week I have seen some shocking examples of bullying. The worst was in netball yesterday when A kept hurling the netball at R (yes, I am worried I will get sued if I use their full names). A has a wicked mean streak in her - apparently she made some other girl cry by calling her a lesbian. Poor little R as well, she is ginger and a bit chubby, a sitting target. Anyway, not sure if it's morally correct, but told A that if I caught her picking on R again, I would make her life a living hell. In retrospect perhaps shoulda been more diplomatic.

So I got thinking about my own school days, trying to figure out if I was bullied or a bully. I came to the conclusion that I was a bit of both, which seems to be the same as most people. I remember life being made rather challenging in the 3rd form when the "asian rude boys" (you'd think you couldn't be an asian rude boy when your parents are both doctors, you've had elocution lessons and can play the violin...but you can) made it their mission to hassle almost every asian girl in our year. At the same time, I remember being an absolute prick in the 1st and 2nd forms, having fallen in with the mean girls and thus devoted to cementing my place in the social hierarchy through various mean activities. Luckily I grew out of all that, but still. Apparently 8 out of 10 kids experience some kind of bullying at school, isn't that a horrid amount? Kids can be really mean.

On the lighter side, I also remembered this hilarious lesson of RE where we put one of those little electronic dogs that bark and jump in circles in one of the lockers in the classroom. So the teacher could hear this random yelping and barking coming from somewhere in the classroom, but couldn't figure out where...she was really getting quite annoyed, but just couldn't find it, ace. Obviously this was topped by the sixth form with the old "mobiles taped under chairs in the theatre" gag, where phones were randomly placed around the theatre and then people would call these phones during assembly, leading to ringing coming from the seats of unsuspecting pupils, and many an innocent student to get done for having a phone in assembly, good stuff. This lasted more than a week before the school clocked on, hahahaha.

Why isn't it half-term yet? I am so tired. *Sigh*. I fear tiredness is causing me to become one of those scatty old teachers, who mumbles to herself, crashes into filing cabinets and leaves things everywhere.

I was observed by my mentor lesson 2 today with my monster year 8s. The scattiness came out to play - I forgot my lesson plans and worksheets(left them with the year 7 tutor group I'd registered that morning) and thus had to freestyle a whole lesson. I tell you, "if you fail to prepare, prepare to fail" really is true. Dang my new-found absent-mindedness.

On the plus side, I played countdown with the year 7s in afternoon registration. They loved it. I put the letters EAFTROSW on the board and asked them to make up words. I was desperate for one of them to say FARTS, but none of them did, so either they are really mature, or too well behaved to say anything like that. Very strange since my Y7 maths group laugh whenever I say dick (this doesn't happen too often, but has happened in the past). Anyway, I think I will provoke them with some other ruder word hidden amongst the letters next time we play.

Tomorrow is our first maths subject studies' day, which is ace, not just because it's a day off from school. Whooooop! It's at Birkbeck, an establishment I have often wondered about, so maybe a bit of adventuring is in order for tomorrow.

And finally, there are only 30 pages left of one of the worst written books I think I have ever read. It's called Love Rules (I shoulda known it'd be rubbish with a title like that, but I do like rules). I have a strange compulsion where I have to read the whole of a book even if it's rubbish, which has meant the past two weeks have been reeeeeaaallllyyyy slow on the story front, but then end is in sight. Maybe I will read it to my kids when they are bad.

Here is a quote to give you a taste:

The pain weighs heavy. Crying hurts. The pain underscores everything she does. It's the punctuation mark at the end of every thought. It catches in her throat and alters the timbre of her voice. It stumbles her walk and has decimated her posture. It prevents her digesting her food. It inhibits her hearing the loving support of Alice, of Sally, of Souki, though she attempts to listen. It's the bed of nails on which she tries but fails to sleep. It hurts, it hurts. It hurts all the time.

Bloody hell, it hurts to read this book. Get on with the story already. I will not be paying 20p to hear this again, no sir.

Week 5!

I trust you have been worried about my absence. Obviously I had fallen off a cliff/got eaten by a shark/kidnapped by pirates/arrested for finally losing my patience with my mad kids.

Nothing so dramatic actually - our NTL crashed. No cable for a week, shocker! No internet either. Was a surprisingly good week; I am starting to believe all those people that complain that we are too "connected" nowadays.

I can't really remember the whole week, but some useful nuggets I picked up:

1. Try out the questions you set your kids before giving them the work.
This is vital. Nothing as embarrassing as work that doesn't work. Was teaching kids to make nets for pyramids (remember, those 2-D layouts that you can fold to make 3-D shapes), but the dimensions were wrong and so a pyramid couldn't be formed. My poor Y11s were utterly flummoxed by it all, but luckily didn't blame me.

2. Know your lingo.
I couldn't explain what a "length" was, despite doing a whole lesson on length, perimeter and area with Y7. Also, had no clue what the difference between tonnes and tons was (the former is a metric unit for 1000kgs; the latter is an imperial unit; I am yet to figure out if those words are singular or plural). And still don't know how much a centilitre is, or what a decimetre is.

3. Don't forget to do things that could be exciting.
I went to a forum on the future of entrepreneurship, which really inspired me for some ideas for our school project. The girls at football have loads of potential, and are psyched by the thought of playing some matches soon. I'm also seeing if I can get something sorted for Children in Need - maybe a talent show? Will be a complete feat to organise in 4 weeks, but maybe...

4. Quiet sometimes work.
Shouting, shouting, shouting - this quickly loses power. Being really quiet works too.

5. Talk to your kids.
On break duty on Friday, two Y7s from my PE class came over and told me about the love poems they'd made up for their new "boyfriends" (I think the extent of the relationship is standing together at break time, and also being able to tell other people that so-and-so is your boyfriend. Bless). The lines were so cute, stuff like "I love your smile, it makes me smile" and they all rhymed too. They offered to let me borrow their lyrics to text to someone special - I told them that their words were too special for anyone I knew :)

What other highlights of the week? Oh oh, on Monday, little Lucy in Y8 threw an absolute tantrum in maths over a 7 minute detention! She flung her chair to the floor, shouted all kinds of expletives, and stormed out of the classroom. Drama drama. I was a bit stunned, but managed to continue the lesson. Anyway, after trying (and failing) to catch her to set her a proper detention, and having her skive my Tuesday lesson, she finally came and apologised saying she had just lost her temper. Poor soul, she probably just had a tough weekend.

Observation last lesson on Friday was absolutely awful - I think the fact that one of my kids said "wow Miss, I didn't even realise we were doing maths today" about three-quarters of the way through said it all! Sadly this was the lesson on length etc. so obviously got lots of "constructive feedback".

And finally, am back on the good stuff :) After a 35 days off, and to celebrate the end of Lariam, I have returned to gentle, responsible drinking. Mmm, it's good, and I forget how cheap cheap Wetherspoon's is. Stevo, 35 days off drinking is not the same as 35 days off Fanta! And, ok, your salary is worse that mine, you win there.

Aaah it's the weekend, whoop! 2 weeks to half term!

Working

Wow, three days and no post, clearly someone's been working(!) Hahaha, well I have been working actually.

It's 20 minutes to 9 on Sunday night and I've just finished a whole day of lesson planning and marking coursework. I've literally done nothing else from 10am apart from an hour for lunch (and an hour's nap of course!). I had to skip the gym and choir rehearsal too cos so much to do. This teaching stuff is insane - I've figured out we really do 6 day weeks, and easily clock up about 60 hours a week, so all that extra bonus we think we get from holidays, we don't really, it's just a case of when we do the time.

My little brother made me laugh on Friday cos I got my pay slip and he laughed at how much I got paid. His actual words were "I wouldn't even get out of bed for that". This isn't true, clearly he would get out of bed for a grand, but he makes a point.

Anyway, the observation on Friday went well; the kids loved the work on tessellations and almost all of them understood it and managed to do the exam question on it, so that was good. Netball was fun too. Year 7 last lesson was awful; I now have first hand experience on how the class will riot if the work is too hard. I'll be trying again with Estimates Take II tomorrow. Spent some good time on TES finding some fun maths brainteasers, so hopefully things will be better this week.

Dropped little bro at uni on Sat - his "set" is amazing, he has a bedroom and his own little lounge/study room, plus a shared kitched and bathroom. Views of the Cam on one side and the quad on the other, so he's done pretty well. Spent all last night at an aunty's, despite my plan being to stay at home and rest and get that coursework marked, hence hecticness of today's work. Can't imagine how much of a panic I'd be in today had I made it to Bertie's birthday. Gutted to have missed that.

Ok, well, best go pop some Vitamin C. Gosh my life has become boring. On the plus side, 30 days without a drink and counting :)