Telford School and Mr Radcliffe

Oh my gosh, I'm listening to Spurs - Arsenal on the radio and being completely distracted from the acres of lesson planning I need to mow through. It's 1-1 now, dramatastic! Wish I could be in the pub watching instead of at my desk...

So today I got into school at 11:00am. A bit of a shocker since usually I am there at 7:50am, whoopsie daisy. I'd like to blame it entirely on my early start yesterday and nothing at all to do with pissing about in the pub back in London. Heehee, lucky me though, it turns out all the Senior Leadership Team were on an away-day today, so managed to escape trouble. School was wonderfully calm and jovial in the absence of scary SLT, and with the sun shining and all, it was a pretty nice day in school. That said though, some cheeky Year 9 monster called me "Miss Shilpa" today. How rude! When we told him off for it, he said he thought that was my name. Grrr, another reason I don't like Big Brother.

In other news, the Telford school trip yesterday was fantastic, a real eye-opener on teaching and learning in a school that doesn't have a trillion issues. It's the 2nd ranked comprehensive school in the country, 99% of pupils get 5 A*s - C grades at GCSEs. Other weird points of note:

• City Technology College with no specific catchment area
• 175 places a year; 1500 applicants!
• Vertical personal tutor groups (kinda like the house system rather than year-based forms)
• "Learning bases" rather than classrooms (insane...there are no walls between classrooms, just screens, and you can just walk in between them and hear and see everything that's going on in the learning base)
• Everyone takes SATS in Year 8 (usually they're taken in Year 9)3 hour long lessons! (even more insane...there's only 2 "sessions" a day, morning and afternoon, and then an optional session 3 of extra-curricular activities)
• Breakfast breaks in the middle of the morning and tutor time in the middle of the day, plus staggered lunch-times
• Expected attendance from 11-18 rather than just to 16 (in built VIth forms are pretty rare up North)
• Reports home every 2 weeks
• No bells, but special phones in every "classroom"
• The weekly "curriculum broadcast" whereby all the exciting stuff taking place in school each week is filmed and edited into a 10 minute TV program, which is shown across the school on a Monday
• Wonderful facilities including an astro-turf, a swimming pool, and independent study areas with state of the art ICT facilities

People who don't care about schools won't find all that interesting, but really, this school is exceptionally novel and exceptionally successful. Made me wonder if I could ever teach anywhere else. Also, made me wonder more about what the impact of teachers on achievement really is (potential Masters thesis title is in the making!)

Puja, lovely to have you back, and a million congratulations on the training contract! Well done you! You did miss a Fruli-frenzy, but sounds like you managed to enjoy yourself without us! How was India? Like the blue?

Mouche, what's happened to your blog?! I am disappointed with the lack of writing, about the tube or otherwise. Write something!

And finally, how hot is Daniel Radcliffe in Equus?! It's so wrong cos he's a wizard and he's only 17, but still!

Bed time

It's 9:15pm. If I want to get my 8 hours sleep, I have to be in dreamland in approximately 15 minutes. Having slept a fair amount yesterday day-time after getting home from Oxford, I am wide-eyed and bushy-tailed (yes, like a squirrel...yum, nuts). This is great for now, but will feel rubbbbbbish tomorrow morning.

Why so early you ask? Well, I have a professional development trip for TF maths teachers to Telford School in, well, Telford (near Birmingham). They've created a wonderful online maths curriculum so that kids can have everything they need to teach themselves the syllabus in the absence of a teacher (competent or otherwise). I look forward to hearing what they've got to say, and also entirely ignoring HSBC, who sponsor the curriculum and the trip, and will no doubt try and convince us to work for them in the 6 hours of journeying back and forth from London.

I may well direct my kids to the site after one of them complained to her friend today that "she's not a real teacher, she doesn't even teach us anything", after I tried to get them to use their initiative to try and answer some GCSE questions. Bear in mind it's about three and half months to the exam and we've covered the whole syllabus, so you'd think by now they'd have some idea of what a rotation was. Humph. Good luck to them is all I say, cos despite rapidly losing my patience with them, this is about the worst I can do. The real working world will be a complete shocker to them no doubt. I can see why they say that kids come out of schools with no skills nowadays...they've been spoon-fed and allowed to sit on their arses for years, what does society expect?

Despite my crossness at them, I am still disappointed with my own professionalism, in that I told them that they might as well leave my lesson then, since there's no point sitting there wasting my time and their time. When they started raging, I just said I wasn't interested and ignored them, which only wound them up more. Good work. I try so hard to be mature, but when I'm dealing with 15 year olds, I find it hard not to resort to acting like one myself. I blame the hangover.

Anyway, I am over it and am going to bed to think about scales (both of the musical and the aquatic variety) and curving my fingers and stopping my left hand going mad on the keys (apologies for allowing you to witness my insanity Jade, again I blame the hangover). Happy thoughts, oh yes..surely a 5:30am wake-up call can only be a happy one?

Old Furies Weekend

Aaah finally I was old and decrepit enough to play for the Oooooold Furies in the annual Old vs New game. A wonderful warm-up in the lead to varsity, the New Furies this year took the game seriously, partly I am sure because their noble (and ethnic) leader MePij warned them that if they lost, she would make them wear the canary kit forever (a horrible punishment). The match took place on Saturday in perfect football weather, especially with the sun in our eyes adding llitres of drama to the match (yes, drama is a liquid).

So highlights:

1. Seeing and playing football with the girls again...aaah good times, I love that lot, they make me laugh, and despite being a knob sometimes, they mostly forgive me. Especially pleased because my knee held up without bionica :)

2. Driving up and back with no problems at all. What a breakthrough on the driving front! Saved time and money too, although admittedly wasn't great for the environment. Particularly pleased with a first time reverse park into Jij's road, and also managing to turn the car round without doing a 20-point turn.

3. Drinking, but not drinking too much. Well done me :) Although still feel rubbishly hungover, maybe that's the cumulative drinking? Or the drinking games...?

4. Being able to shout out "gypsies" lots and lots, without getting in real trouble, woo, a dream come true!

5. Comedy football itself. I love comedy football. And wombats too.

6. Restarting plans to go to China this summer, very exciting!

Lowlights:

1. Pilau Sprouse breaking her thumb and getting a "gooseegg" on her head and on her nose. Still, guess it wouldn't be a Furies social without some kinda drunken misdemeanour. Poor Spouse.

2. Random people on Cowley Road asking me if I'm from India or Pakistan...why do they even care?

3. Getting minimal sleep (although I did get to sleep under a dressing gown...bonus!)

4. People being upset about stuff, but hopefully they are not any more....

5. That chemical tea. Yuck. But still, waste not want not.

6. Losing 1-0...though this is probably good for the Nuries morale.

7. Sending random drunken texts and then cleverly emptying my outbox so I can't see what I sent or to whom. Dang it, sometimes I am too devious for my own good.

That's all I can remember for now (apart from numerous references to PowerPoint presentations, but I can't think what they were meant to be about...), but it was still a blinding weekend, and I'm pleased the Furies dynasty lives on!

Drama

Wednesdays are meant to be quiet, but they never are. Some top drama today.

I had been marking in the maths office periods 1 and 2. When I came back to the office at lunchtime after support teaching periods 3 and 4, I noticed that my pencil case was gone. Strange, I thought. In fact, I was quite cross, since I love my stationery, and I hate the idea of anyone daring to take anything of mine (I have just about accepted the fact that I will never see my USB stick again...as my mentor says "if it's not nailed down, the kids'll have it").

Anyway, looked around the office and couldn't find it, so did the responsible thing and went to eat lunch. In the staffroom, I mentioned my missing pencil case to another maths teacher, who helpfully pointed out that they had caught a "well known Year 10 kleptomaniac" wandering around the maths department during period 3. Interesting. I went back over to our block and looked through my bag. Shocker, my calculator had been nicked too! Now I was cross.

I went upstairs and spoke to yet another maths teacher about the "kleptomaniac" and she directed me to the Head of Year 11 (yes, another maths teacher). Now, this guy is amazing. There are a lot of people I could criticise with my meagre 5 months of teaching experience, but the Head of Year 11 is certainly not one of them. He's the kind of teacher I aspire to be. No messing, he gets the job done, he's strict but fair, the kids respect him, and he's always there when you need him. So straight away he leaves his office and marches over to the main school to find out where klepto is timetabled to be. As we're walking up to C5, we bump into the caretaker. When we tell him the story, he says that he found a calculator in the boys' toilet in the maths department. Hopeful that it is mine, we make a diversion to his office.

Alas, it's not mine. Worse, it is one of thirty unmarked school calculators, which are also kept in the maths office. We hurry back over to the maths block to check out the office again, and lo and behold, the entire crate of calculators has been nicked! Hahaha, no longer a case of petty theft but over £250 worth of stolen property. Now the chase is on to catch the culprits and recover the calculators.

To cut a looooong story short, we managed to get 22 back (from all corners of the school, literally). The kid who'd nicked stuff right outta my bag had his stuff searched and I got my calculator back. Sadly the amazing pencil case is still missing, including the magic pen with a highlighter on the end that said "congratulations, you made the effort" on the side (a gift from Walmer Science College in Kent, one of the first schools I taught in over the summer). And the saga isn't over yet, since the school is supposedly getting the police involved (yeah, likely. Not). Still, dramatastic.

In other news, two comedy events from the day:

Period 1, covering a Y8 English lesson for 5 mins:

Girl: Miss, I had a snowball fight at 6am.
Me: That's nice. I like snow, but mostly from the inside. I don't like to get my feet wet.
Girl: You don't like snowball fights? You adults need to learn to have some fun!

Hmmm, when did I become old and boring? And why do I try and share my thoughts with kids?

Tutor time in the afternoon:

Boy: Miss, can you put my interview sheet on Sir's desk?
Me: Ok.
[Boy takes sheet out of pocket. Condom falls out of pocket onto the floor]
Me: Errr, it's school-time, why have you got that in school?
Boy: It's not mine, Miss.
Me: Why do you have it then?
Boy: I dunno.
Me: (realising I should be promoting condoms) Good, well, better safe than sorry.

No school tomorrow, training day, yay!

Bricks in the freezer

Having wasted an epic amount of time not making the EAL (English as an Additional Language) maths exam keywords dictionary that I intended to compile this evening, and having not completed a strenuous workout at the gym (Hollyoaks is my downfall), I figure I'd not bother to waste more time but instead just ask you the burning question of the day instead...

So, in the Proper Education video, the kids are all saving the environment etc. and at one point the kids break into a flat and put a brick in the freezer. How is this helping the environment? I can't figure it out and I really wanna know!

Mouche, good geekiness, but what do the words mean? I know I could look them up, but we're all about not taking responsibility today.

That time of the term

Yes, we're at that time of the term already, where the kids have settled back, we're into the trudge of learning and meetings and assemblies and coursework, and the next holiday seems a decade away. As a matter of fact, we have three more weeks of school until half-term, but I can already sense they will go ever so slowly. It's kinda like 5th week blues, except it goes on for aaaages. Term-time blues.

The hecticness of last week made me thoroughly blue this weekend. Don't worry, I am perked up now. Friday was knackering, particularly because my Y8 girls' team had a Borough tournament after school. They got knocked out during the group stages, but I'm proud of them. I got home at 7:30pm and was in bed by 9:00pm, thus missing Ish's birthday party. Poor form.

Tiredness has been further exacerbated by the fact that our house has a big tarpaulin sheet over the roof due to the loft conversion that's currently taking place (err hello? who takes the roof off a house in bitterly cold January? Well, my family for starters...). During the day the sheet is quiet, but come night-time, it goes mad and shakes and rustles and essentially stops you sleeping. Grr. Consequently, I felt even more rough on Sat and so I missed Fi's birthday party too. Very poor form.

Today I feel better. Our match was cancelled so I made myself run 5km to get rid of any lingering miserygutsness. I have planned my lessons for the week and have vowed not to think about school again until tomorrow. Good plan. I have also spent considerable time belting our The Fratellis, thus returning the smile to my face.

Two new words for you Mouchio: munificent and grandiloquent.

Looking forward to Old Furies this weekend; they may conquer us physically, but our superior lexicon is interminable.

The Wind

The Head of my Department told me way back last term that the wind makes kids lala. Well, apparently, it doesn't seem to do the adults any good either.

I guess most of you experienced the craaaazy 80mph winds today. Here in sunny Clayhall, a massive pine tree was blown down by the park gates at the end of my road, causing the pavement to be blocked and lots of emergency metal fencing to be put up (not the best plan, since these fences too soon rapidly blew over). Further up the road, another tree had been uprooted and spilled across the tarmac. Exciting stuff.

However, nowhere near as exciting, dramatic, or chaotic as school today.

But let me start at the start.

I made a list of things I had to do today because I knew it would be one of those busy stressful days. Busy and stressful because basically my Y11s have their coursework due in tomorrow and I have told them to do the wrong thing. Well, not completely the wrong thing. I feel it was more that I was poorly instructed on the purpose of the task, and have thus told my kids to do things that we should have done differently. Consequently, we have looooooots of fixing to do. All well and good if the kids were ICT-literate, or even just literate. But, alas, alack. I had one of the most stressful lessons with them today period 2. Thankfully they didn't blame me for having to do more work again, but really, I would be quite happy if such a lesson were never to take place again. On the plus side, lots of them were amazed by the concept of formula and the graphs they made, so that is good.

Anyway, on to the real drama. Period 4 with Year 8. This lesson on a Thursday is always a nightmare. But even worse today. Usually the kids are pretty distracted by the building works taking place next door. Halfway through the lesson, D shouts, "Miss Miss things are falling off the school". I tend to ignore his outbursts. But this time he was serious: things really were falling off the school. Basically one of the sections of roof from one of the school blocks had blown off and crashed into the top floor of windows of another block. Luckily no-one was hurt, but this lead to mass evacuation of everyone to the main corridor and hall for safety reasons (just in case anything else flew off and hit them). Very tricky with over 700 pupils in a tight space, especially since it was coming up to lunchtime. Needless to say, utter chaos ensued, with the naughty ones taking every opportunity to make the situation worse. Fights broke out, kids took out their (banned) mobile phones and made emergeny calls home, girls sat down in protest in the corridor. It was a nightmare.

Anyway, I have just about recovered from the drama (I thought about running to de-stress, but then sat and ate flapjacks and pizza instead). And sadly, school is open for business tomorrow. On the plus side, I told my year 8s that they should enjoy me teaching them primary school work because once they get out into the big bad world, no-one will care enough to teach them anyway - how's that for "raising expectations"? Oh yes, when I'm bad, I'm aaaaawful.

Shreqa, lovely to hear from you, how're the legs, what's the latest?
Yeen, how's that for procrastination? Si.

Fingers crossed for more fun tomorrow. I am still trying to be positive. But really, roll on the weekend.

My day

I know there are at least two budding TFTs (TF trainees) reading this blog, so I thought I'd give you a run down of a day-in-the-life. Despite the hecticness, I don't think I'd change much of it really.

7:45am - arrive at school and sort out lesson plans for the day.
8:00am - prepare a letter to send to parents about the football tournament on Friday.
8:20am - morning staff meeting:cock up my message about football practice on Thursday leading to kids asking me all day if the practice is tomorrow; also sort out risk assessment forms.
8:40am - Y7 PE: timed exercises, but I forget what some of the exercises are and the main PE teacher isn't there so I confuse the girls instead.
9:45am - Y8 maths: much improvement on multiplying and dividing by powers of ten, but why-oh-why didn't they do this in primary school?
10:45am - break, most of which is spent telling off naughty year 8 boys and looking for squared paper, manage to wolf down a banana.
11:05am - Y11 maths coursework: aaaaargh, how can you get kids to write up coursework when their English is so weak? Surprisingly, working on computers seems to help with language, so might do more of that.
12:10pm - Y10 maths: take 5 kids out to do a test on charts, try and mark Y11 papers, fail to complete it.
1:10pm - lunch break: 40 minutes of the hour spent helping Y11s with coursework in the computer room. 15 minutes eating lunch. Manage to finally get a master key for the main school, exciting!
2:10pm - Y7 maths: kids thrown by algebra but very impressed by the online psychic, surprise visitors of the Principal and mystery guest didn't help with concentration.
3:10pm - tutor time: deliver letters to footballers
3:30pm - catch my after school detention kids before they run away home.
5:00pm - finally leave school after finishing the detentions and helping Y11s after school.

Subsequently I have been to the gym, practised the piano (don't expect too much though Jade!), watched a program about kidneys, checked my emails, written in The Journal and made my lunch for tomorrow. Now it is 4 minutes to bed time. What a busy day. But really, a good one.

Running for the bus

As a rule, I don't run for the bus. When I walk down my road to the bus stop, I always see the bus going past just when I am within running distance to catch it. And I always think, shall I run? But I don't. Why should I run? I mean, I'm inevitably late anyway (perhaps a change in thinking is in order?)

Last night after Mos' surprise birthday party in Oxford (not convinced he was actually surprised, but wonderful fun nonetheless) I got the OxTube back to London and was walking down New Oxford Street at about 3am. I was about 300 yards from my bus stop when I saw the N8 zoom past me. Dang it, I thought, I'm gonna have to wait half-an-hour for the next one. Then, I don't know what happened, but my legs started moving. Really fast. Some might even call it a run. Hahaha, yes, I ran for the bus. And I caught it! It was amazing, I felt like I was flying. Admittedly I was a bit drunk (after only a few drinks, shockingly lightweight!) and I am a big fan of my new K-Swiss. But still, whizzing down that pavement was remarkably liberating. I am much better at running for a reason.




The bus was completely packed and full of chatter all the way home. It was lovely to see all these different groups of people from all over the world, sharing this delightful night-bus journey home. I felt as though we were a little community, brought together by chance. What else will we ever have in common apart from that one journey home together?

Mouche, thank you for the wonderful definitions. I like carapace the best, I think I may invest in one for myself. And yes, you need to blag your way out of work so that we can all go up on Friday night and provide the new Furies with a suitable source of hangover.

Sprouts and MePij, hope all is well.

Jade, I have learnt to play Silent Night on the piano! How exciting!

And finally Rob, if you're reading this, so lovely to see you and Francesca on Saturday, The Three Goats Head is def on my list, so thank you.

New words

I am learning from Intimacy. Check out these exciting new words:

"Unlike me she doesn't constantly lucubrate on the splendours and depths of her mind."
"But to keep everything going she can be bullying and strict, with a hard, charmless carapace."
"I have wavered, vacillated and searched myself for a reason to stay."

Actually, I guess I'm not really learning just yet as I don't know what these words mean. Answers on a postcard. Or in a comment.

In other news, D is behaving much better after being put on maths department report...fingers crossed he stays well behaved. Y11 parents' evening tonight went pretty well; most people seemed to believe I was a teacher, which is promising :) Spent period 1 in the first aid room learning about medical care at school. Also got in touch with the good people at Forest to organise a little visit back to my alma mater. Risky since once I see how "nice" teaching could be, will life in the academy ever be able to compare?

Wise horoscopes

Firstly a big shout-out to Puja - well done! See, now I feel loved :) And contrary to popular belief, Puja is real. As is Mouche. And my cat. One day you will all be able to meet each other and certify your mutual existence. This day will probably be my wedding, so there'll be cake and saris involved (an unexpected bonus for you all!).

So, what's new today? Well, I think my Metro horoscope says it all:

‘I can see clearly now, the rain has gone,’ sang Jimmy Cliff (amongst others) and that’s your theme for the moment. Scales have fallen from your eyes. Illuminating insights about a person or situation flood in. Like what you see?

Indeed the rain does seem to have gone. And by that I mean, even when the little monsters try and destroy my soul, I can leave it behind me and move on. Let me quickly touch wood now [touches wood] because I don't wanna go back to what it was like last term. But really, I'm reaching a turning point. I'm starting to care about what I teach, and think about interesting and fun and engaging ways to teach it. I'm starting to do all that stuff we were always meant to be doing (differentiating resources, providing EAL support, modelling positive values, taking an interest in my professional development). Despite having an awful awful Y8 lesson (that little monster D is going on maths department report from tomorrow, he is sabotaging that class's learning) I still feel like today that I could be a teacher in the long-run. Yes, I know this contradicts the whole medicine plan, but it's nice to know that sometimes maybe I have found something that's right for me.

In other news, I'm very pleased it's the year of the pig. What a noble creature. Some useful excerpts:"People born in the Year of the Pig are chivalrous and gallant. Whatever they do, they do with all their strength. For Boar Year people, there is no left or right and there is no retreat. They have tremendous fortitude and great honesty. They don't make many friends but they make them for life, and anyone having a Boar Year friend is fortunate for they are extremely loyal. They don't talk much but have a great thirst for knowledge. They study a great deal and are generally well informed. Boar people are quick tempered, yet they hate arguments and quarreling. They are kind to their loved ones. No matter how bad problems seem to be, Boar people try to work them out, honestly if sometimes impulsively. They are most compatible with Rabbits and Sheep." (not sure what the school would say if I got "compatible" with a sheep...)

Sound like me? I feel kinda like I should be an elephant, but pig suits me fine :) Check your Chinese horoscope out here (this site's description of "pig" people is almost me to the tee. Ooh rhyming!

Intimacy

This is the title of the book I'm reading now. It's written by Hanif Kureishi, which sounds like something you could order off a menu:

Waiter: Are you ready to order, Madam?
Customer: Why yes, I am. May I have kohlapuri chicken with peshwari naan, some aloo gobi and some raita? Oh and some hanif kureishi too please.

I guess you could do that with any ethnic sounding name, but Kureishi just sounds so tasty. I'm only a few pages into it, but it's already quite deep stuff. The best lines so far are: "because words are actions and they make things happen. Once they are out you cannot put them back". Very true.

I also like this book because the font is nice and it is well spaced. Yes, I am getting old. Sadly though, there hasn't been any mention of fruit yet, which was a definite strong point of Oranges. By the way Mouche, this book is even more about you than you realise...quite the shocker in fact. I take it you have read it? And no, hurting veins isn't a good thing. I might add some orange Sainsbury's carrier bags to the pile of stuff (henceforth known as PoS) because they are so pretty.

I should be lesson planning, but I think this term I am going to take a more "relaxed" approach to lessons. Blagging is very common in the teaching profession so I think it's time I gave it a go. Besides, blagging is only one letter away from blogging, and I can do that pretty well :)

Puja, I will not be writing in sky blue again until you publicly declare your love for the colour on my blog. Also, I put the chicken stuff in the fridge after you guys dropped me off, but when I woke up on Sunday, it had already gone! I told you food moves quick in my house!

The start of term...

...has been strangely good. Maybe because the kids were only in for 3 days. Whatever, I was pleasantly surprised. Not that I was dreading going back or anything...

Friday was full of good drama highlights. I was on duty at break in the playground and some Y9 boys had brought in Chinese firecrackers and proceeded to set them off in front of everyone. Despite not being an expert on the school rules, I was pretty certain that this was against them, and so I had to spend lots of valuable time chasing the boys. Excellent. Then, at lunchtime, I headed into the maths block to set up for my lesson and there were kids smoking in the hallway. INSIDE! How daring. They obviously ran away, so again I had to do some chasing. Honestly, these kids, why can't they stay out of trouble? Still, it was kinda funny.

In other news, I am going to pick up my piano today, awooohooo! Also, my brother says he is going to buy me a bop-it, which is also good news. These things are amazing - Disneys in particular will love it; a very worthwhile investment with hours of pointless fun right at your fingers (not that you don't have this already, nudge nudge wink wink...heehee. Although, Mouche, the pile of stuff is lots of fun too. My GCSE Geography coursework is currently on the top, though I think the Over Head Projector writing kit might soon take the much coveted pole position).

Right that is all. Oh, except I love the Docklands, they are so pretty.

Happy 2007!

I have lots and lots to say.

BuUUUUUuuUuUuut......

Alas, alack, I am exhausted. Thus I will have to save it all for another day.

I hope you are all well and enjoying this lovely odd year. Check out your horoscopes for added educational value in the absence of a brilliant (heehee) post from me.