Friday night ramblings

Have just eaten a plain roti with potato curry so can't sleep yet so will ramble instead...

Went to a lovely Lebanese in Queensway with some TFers. Excellent shisha. Despite looking forward to the whole smoking ban, will be sad to see these institutions go. Chances are they will find their way around it though...fingers crossed anyway.


New '07 TFers have their London week next week. Bless them, can't believe it's been a year since we did our London week already! First taste of school life for the new kids on the block. Excellent, fresh meat for our little angels to torment. Fingers crossed they'll be nice; have every faith in them.

Last day at Mulberry. Very nice stuff. Finally saw some naughty kids, and also some very low-ability ones, but even the bottom set Y7 were working on isometric drawings with some managing to churn out level 6 stuff, so not all bad there. Taught them a maths game - call out a number, if it's in the two times table clap your hands, if it's in the three times table hum etc. They seemed to enjoy it, funny funny stuff indeed.

And lastly, apparently the football girls were awfully behaved this week and so have been pulled out of the London Youth games by the other coach and the PE department. This does sadden me - why couldn't they hold it together? It's a shame, the Youth games is amazing, they've missed a good opportunity there. On the plus side, this means I can go to Tania's 18th tomorrow night, and also have Sunday free to PORTFOLIO, fun times! Need to get through the skills masterclass ("defining my leadership journey"...*mini-cringe*) at Freshfields tomorrow morning first.

SSE Day 4

Mulberry teaches maths in a very hand-ons/investigative type way. Lots of open activities, often involving some kinda colouring in/cutting out/pretty poster making. Not just scissors and glue though - the girls present the work they have done to the class and talk it through, tough stuff for some kids (especially those with EAL) so am impressed by that. And, importantly, all this investigative work leads to lots of lovely posters with which one can decorate the classroom. Kinda made me wish I had a fixed classroom next year so that I could set it up in group-work tables and have pretty displays too.

I watched the Y11 NRA day today (their final Y11 assembly and prize day). It was so beautiful, very emotional, even for me, a complete outsider. The head of Y11 is this super energetic middle-aged African woman, positively bouncing with barmy-ness, amazing! She wore a sari and the bit over her shoulder fell off during her speech and she just laughed it off. Also, upon opening her expensive-looking large ornamental bowl present, she immediately balanced it on her head and remarked "this is how we do it back home". Hahaha. The girls were really well behaved and all looked stunning in their traditional dress. A wonderful speech too from the head prefect. Yet more impressive stuff.

On the other end of the spectrum, I observed period 6 history with 9U. Made me very thankful that we only have one lesson after lunch. Period 6 seems to be a write-off. And these girls were actually pretty awful, well, by Mulberry standards anyway. Very rude and kept talking over the teacher and not doing the work and generally wasting their time. I could feel the rage bubbling in me and was very close to lecturing them all (despite their two other actual teachers being in the room...how could they let the girls behave like that?!). To calm myself I ran through bits of the lecture in my head (basically focusing on the fact that these girls are really privileged and lucky to have the educational opportunities they had, and that if they chose to waste them, well, they would have no-one else to blame when their poor kids ended up in a scummy school like mine). I then walked out.

Only one more day of this SSE, but don't worry, am already lining up a couple of days at my old primary school, yippee! Am helpfully in denial about the whole portfolio and all the tonnes of things I need to sort out to put in it. Also completely ignoring the dread I've got for school next week. Good times.

SSE Day 3

I am experiencing considerable "the grass is greener" type thoughts. My metro horoscope told me I would.

Another TFer was in school with me today, on the last day of his own Second School Experience. He's a maths teacher at Highbury Grove, and his school sounds just as rough as mine. We both spent much of the day sharing anecdotes and generally winding up the TFers at Mulberry about how easy their jobs were compared to ours. Obviously I don't believe that - teaching is hard everywhere, and I can see working with the Mulberry girls would also definitely have its downsides e.g. the incessant chatter, the bitchiness of girls, EAL demands including the use of Bengali in the classroom (am continually paranoid they are saying bad things...in fact, rule 7 of the classroom rules clearly states pupils should only be using English in the classroom unless given permission to do otherwise).

Nevertheless, other members of the maths department at Mulberry felt that some schools were certainly tougher places to work in than others. Mulberry seems to be a lovely training environment, and I'm pretty sure I would have done well there. I'm also pretty sure the TFers at Mulberry would have survived at my academy. But would they be as good teachers now if they'd had to go through our experiences? Like I say, the grass is always greener....

Can you figure out which kids belong to which school?

AS Sociology

The whole "will I, won't I" discussion over whether I'm actually teaching AS Sociology next year is still to be resolved. Timetabling seems to have become a complete nightmare for the SLT guy in charge - so much so that no-one really knows what they're definitively doing next year. This kinda makes it hard to plan, but we're plowing (ploughing?) on regardless.

With that in mind, I spent most of my morning with the Sociology Department at Mulberry. Very established department, again with a TFer as HoD. Why these TF kids are high achievers! Apparently the majority of new teachers don't want any management responsibilities, but it seems most TFers who are into their 3rd or 4th year of teaching have gone straight in there and grabbed themselves a post. Head of Maths for me? *shudder* I can't think of anything worse!

Anyway the department has achieved a GCSE pass rate of almost 80% A*-C for the last 4 years; this is huge when you think that our pass rate across the board is only 27%. Very dynamic, excellent resources and ideas, was very useful chattering with them. Plus plus plus they've given me tips on exam boards, old textbooks they don't need, ideas for teaching, and, very importantly, whole schemes of work for lots of units, excellent!

Anyway, it's that awkward transition time of year from LVIth to UVIth, but work is still going on. Watched a lesson on sociological theory where the kids were briefed on five main theories, put into groups, given a theory each, and then told to go away and research it and apply the theory to a topic from the list of "football, Christmas, fashion or chocolate", then make a poster and powerpoint presentation to teach the rest of the class. Interestingly the ppt had to be a max of 4 slides with 20 words in total, but with as many pictures as they wanted - something the girls were initially shocked by!

I only saw about 20 minutes of actual teaching time, but the girls in that group were excellent, really keen and got straight onto their independent work. Their teacher told me he makes them teach each other to help them get ideas clear in their head and become more creative with their work. This style of teaching I guess is similar to what I do in maths, but there's no way I could ever leave the kids to get on with their own work for a double session. Maybe I will have to learn to give the kids more responsibility; after all, they'll have to take control of their own work at uni.

Watched Sanju teach an excellent lesson with her Y7s. Was so impressed, in fact, that I think I'm going to do something similar for my external assessment in two weeks with my Y7s. Clearly she loves her maths and her teaching, which is half the battle won already. There was a real buzz of purposefulness in the room, with the girls working together on their questions and racing against time for the prize, exciting stuff! I won't tell you any more, I'll save it for two weeks. But despite all the bad press we get in staffrooms, I'm convinced that on the whole TF teachers really are motivated and enthusiastic and do make a difference in schools. Sure there are cynics to be found everywhere - it's just a case of proving them wrong (not as easy to do as it is to type!)

Had the afternoon off cos the staff were on INSET, bonus! Contemplated how I might basically just be teaching the wrong subject in the wrong school, but didn't really get anywhere with what to do about it. Now off to the gym. All in all a good day.

Second School Experience - Day 1

Today I woke up 2 minutes before my alarm with a smile on my face. A strange sensation indeed. And then I remembered I didn't have to go to school, yippee!

Obviously it poured all day and I wasn't wearing enough layers and I had to walk lots and wait for public transport and all the usual things that slightly annoy me, but doesn't matter, crucially, I didn't have to go to school today. Yippee once again!

So Mulberry School for Girls in Whitechapel. Very different to the old academy. For starters, there's only one white kid in the whole school, how crazy is that! It's 97% Bangladeshi Muslim - so much so that the girls can wear an actual hijab variant of the school uniform (I say variant, but really this is the dominant choice of uniform). It's a big school - almost 1500 kids, with 400 in the VIth form. When ours opens in September I think we'll only have 60 or so. The buildings, resources, staff, kids etc. are all lovely - the school went under some kinda refurbishment maybe 3/4 years ago and also got involved in a PFI partnership with Parkwood Leisure so at 6pm every night the school shuts and becomes a leisure centre! This explains the awesome sports facilities - they have everything apart from playing fields and a pool, including a tumble track, dance studio, astroturf pitches and a climbing wall! There's IWBs in the maths rooms, which are big and spacious. Most different of all was the fact that they trusted the kids to be unsupervised in rooms/corridors etc. during the day and also left rooms unlocked. I mean, they actually leave the maths store room unlocked as a matter of course. As I learnt the hard way, don't do this at my school. If it's not nailed down, they'll have it.

The most interesting thing I did today was take part in the Ocean Maths workshop. This is a pioneering Tower Hamlets workshop, borne from the Ocean Estate in E1, and aiming to increase parental involvement in their kid's maths learning. So workshop leaders come in with interpreters etc. and work on activities with the kids and their parents together to encourage them both to be more confident and work together more. It really was lovely to see, despite the scary lady in charge of it (well, obviously I charmed her in the end, but at the start of the session I was standing by a desk and she asked me to move, and I said where, and she said anywhere just move, all because a trolley was coming through - duh, am I blind or something? Clearly I would have moved out of the way all by myself, why the hostile tone?)

After school I had a training session on paper folding, which was fantastic! Called "how to be a paper mathemagician" it really did what it said on the tin! Now have lots of ideas on how to teach Shape, Space and Measure using paper folding activities including making a tetrahedron out of an envelope, shape tesselations from folding A4 paper, and making a pull-up cube (it looks magical!)

In conclusion, I think I have realised that my school really is awful (this thought is increasingly justified every time I visit another school) but it's nice to have a week break and get my enthusiasm for this job back. Given that we have quite a few TF quitters, who are leaving after the first year, well, I don't wanna be one of those people, so this week should do me good.

In other news, my little bro's latest goldfish, Mao, is on his last (metaphorical) legs. He is on his side and not looking good. Looking at him makes me cringe, but I can't help but stare. *shudder*. Would fish euthanasia be a no-no?

Family ramblings

A week away from school. Thank the heavens!

My middle brother didn't get the grades he needed to get on to his graduate medical course, so things are a bit up in the air for him. On the other end of the spectrum, my little brother came 5th in his year (well, outta 75, but it is Cambridge, so props to him) and has been allowed to switched to Natural Sciences (from Theology and Religious Studies - what a dramatic switch!) next year, so he's pretty psyched.

With all this news in hand, I went to the temple with my mother this morning. I like the temple, it makes me feel pretty calm. My mother likes it because she is really rather religious, and also because it's a nice social venue, where you can unexpectedly bump into all sorts of family and friends. My favourite highlight from today was when a friend of my late grandmother's saw me after a looooong time and asked what I was doing. When I said teaching, she said that it was an excellent profession since I could come home at 3pm every day and look after my husband and children. I'm not sure her perspective on our school situation is entirely valid.

Another thing that made me laugh today was as we were driving home I saw our new borough logo: Redbridge, a better place to live. This is a bit of a smack in the face for the borough of Newham, whose sign is about 50 metres away, but I guess Redbridge is a slightly better place to live. Approximately 3 mins after reading the sign, we were involved in an altercation with two rather horrid Eastern European chaps, who were in the car behind us and kept beeping and raging at us to cut through the red light so they could keep going. One of them got out of his car and came at shouted at me in the front passenger seat. He even invited me to lower my window - a request I politely declined. What has happened to our lovely little Jewish borough? Humph.

And finally, my ebayed digital camera arrived, yay, but sans cables, boooo!

Coaching Event 1

School was school. I have decided that, as therapeutic as this blog is, today I am not going to rant.

Instead, I will skip straight to the most interesting part of my day - my first meeting with my TF coach.

My coach is called Mark and he works as an Emerging Markets Trader at Lehman Brothers. He's worked there for 3 years and doesn't appear to trade just one thing - rather, he trades all kinds of products linked to emerging markets (predominantly Asian) and is quite senior in the company (i.e. they let him take quite a lot of risk in his work).

So the idea of a TF coach is that TF match you up with someone in business/education/coaching etc. who will help you realise goals by thinking through things in a new way. We met at a lovely Thai restaurant in Liverpool St and got off to a good start when he offered to pay for everthing. Excellent. Further bonus points came when he revealed that he was holding a half a million dollar position on some product or other, and that he was really rather worried about it, but decided to fulfill his TF commitments and meet with me rather than stay at work. Much props for that, although I am thinking perhaps in this instance we should have eaten in a place that had mobile phone reception (we got out of the restaurant and he had 7 voicemails, which I took to be a bad sign on the whole money/trading/wheeler dealing etc. He also mentioned that quite a few people had gone crazy at his work, oh dear. At least stress in school means something).

Anyway, I really enjoyed the meeting, mainly because I managed to actually be a little bit open with someone. Despite my copious sharing, of late, on the blog, I am quite secretive (heehee, understatement). But, my coach made it very easy to share ideas etc. and so I think our meeting was productive e.g. I told him about how my folks probably want me married in the next few years and how this might be screwing up future plans, which is something I've hardly told anyone.

I think the other thing about it, apart from the sharing and trust and mutual respect, was the fact that the whole meeting was about me. Now, this sounds grossly arrogant and self-centred and all that, but, in fact, I spend a small portion of my time dealing with things that are to do with me (again, the blog comes up as an example, but there probably should be a better example than that). Very self-indulgent to have a whole evening to talk about me and what I want, and at the start I spent most of the time trying to switch the convo back to him, but in the end he said the whole point was for him to get to know me, and so I better start talking, hahaha. This was followed by a wholestream of tough questions e.g. whose opinion matters the most to you, your family, your friends, or your work colleagues? How do you measure your success?

To cut a looong story short, the food was lovely, I didn't get hammered (bonus points for me!), and I am now inspired to evaluate myself more critically and think about what I really want and what I'm all about. Lots of tough questions, but I think I need to get on top of them. This coaching thing is a really good idea for people like me, who need some guidance and a wall to bounce things off, so I have some hopes here.

In final news, through Facebook I am back in touch with an ooooold friend from primary school. My fondest memories of him include crying my whole way through his swimming pool birthday party cos I banged my head on the side of the pool, his terrible twin brothers, and his general "gentle giant" demeanour. Needless to say, for someone who lists "Romford Fitness First" as an interest, well....ladies you can judge him for yourself, heehee (ps, make sure you look at the profile pictures album, but don't check it at work, it may look like you are visiting naughty websites!)

Here's a sample, although have blanked out his nice face so I don't get sued! Please message me/wall me if you approve!

Four weeks to go!

Plus plus plus next week I'm on second school placement, so not really school, and Y11 are obvy not coming back, and Y10 are on work experience for two weeks, so things should get better!

I sneaked home early on Monday after my last lesson of the day (end of period 3 - 12:10pm) justifying it to myself by claiming that it's just silly to expect someone to stay for 3 more hours just to cover a 20 minute tutor time. Sure there were probably useful things I coulda done in that time (marking, planning, WA4, the dreaded P word....PORTFOLIO!!!!) But no, decided I'd had enough and did a runner.

School is going ok, am a bit la-la land about it all really. Y8s went a bit mad today, one even stormed out of break-time detention. Called their parents etc. but the kids for the after school detention skived it, so have slapped them into the SLT detention on Friday. Had a department meeting, wasn't that interesting really. I still find that I hardly understand what they are talking about or why, but have hope that maybe one day I will.

Been covering 7E while their tutor gets over the shingles. 7E and I are not the best of friends, but I think we are making small improvements. The class has lots of weirdos in it and they are hard to control, but I think I am going to try and up my game with them a little bit. This afternoon's idea of talking about tips for the new Year 6 crashed like a lead balloon, but they soon got back on side when I let the well-behaved kids leave 5 minutes early. This is probably an unprofessional strategy, sending out all kinds of bad signals, but whatever.

Am more concerned about the camera I bought on ebay still not arriving - am convinced my postman nicks all my fun things, grrrr. Also have my first meeting with my careers coach tomorrow night, so need to think of some things that I want to achieve....hmmm....well top of the list is surely getting through the next four weeks!

PS Suggestions for the stress head include: counseling, happy pills, an extended leave of absence from work...essentially all kinds of things that I'm not interested in doing thank you very much. So will just have to get my head back in the game - can't be that hard.

Weekend update

Friday night - reunion with the girls from school at Puja's place. Fruli, yum yum, Curacao, yum yum, cherry brandy, yum yum, Black label, oh dear. A night of fun and poker, won the first round (whoop whoop) then battled HW till almost 5 in the morning, ultimately losing. Four hours of sleep wasn't good, but the night was worth it.

Sat night - having slept through the day once I got home, went to a wedding reception. Nice and fancy schmancy. Crucially, the news broke that my cousin Dhushi has got engaged to her Muslim boyfriend. Only slightly controversial in the traditional sense - more alarming that now there is only one female cousin before it is officially my turn to tie the knot. Crumbs.

Sunday - went to the gym. Got screwed over by new parking restrictions and so landed myself a ticket. My "unnecessary costs of driving" now exceed £1000 i.e. a whole grand, a whole month's salary essentially wasted due to my poor driving. Don't even get me started on car insurance aka tax on the honest driver.

Aaaaanyway....had a nice piano lesson, then went to play Scrabble with Mouche, CK and Gid. Mouche is alive and well, and we bonded, very nice. Gid won the Scrabble, but that was ok as he had no sleep last night and is busy seeing two different boys on the trot. CK was all good, but then he got a phone call with some bad news about his grandfather. Am still a little shocked on his behalf, but hope he's ok. Had four pints of Guinness and haven't planned any lessons...the cumulative hangover is growing.

Busy day tomorrow, but, crucially, am seeing the doctor to think of ways to fix my head. Sure you'll love to hear the suggestions, so stay tuned.

Shout out to Yeen, by the way, looong blog no see. Nice to have you back.

Thursday

I think today was a bit of turning point. I do have some ranting to do, but I guess it's not strictly ranting since I'm not complaining, more simply stating the facts.

Can't remember if I already said, but my brand new birthday present car turned three years old a coupla weeks ago, and so had to be MOT-ed. And, predictably, it failed. The most annoying reason is that there is no alloy wheel locking kit in the car since the sodding thieves nicked that as well. This means that all the wheel nuts have to replaced, pricey. I think this pushes the grand cost of putting my car in the care of another maths teacher to over £600. Needless to say I won't be doing that again. Apparently the front right tyre also had a deep cut in it, there was some kinda leaky gasket, and something else wrong with it too. Excellent.

I had a double observation (two people in observing) with my Y8s before lunch today. We went to the computer room, and it was mostly going fine, except little D was being a bit of psycho. I knew he was in a hyper mood even as he stepped into the room, but I think the excitement of computers + a room change + having visitors was just too much for him to cope with, and so his behaviour went right out the window. I finally had to kick him out the lesson when he started jumping from the chair onto the desk. Made the mistake of letting him back into the room, where he proceeded to wind up the pupils next to him, then run around the room, then sit at my desk and start writing over the flipchart that I had prepared and was currently being projected to the class. I took him to the LSU straight after the lesson to get them to talk to him and try and figure out what went wrong. A turning point for me really, since whereas before this type of thing would have made me pretty stressed and wired, today I didn't really care. Sure it wasn't a good observation, but what can I do really? Either I am feeling apathy, or I am actually so stressed I don't notice stress any more (this could be true - last night I woke up in a panic at 4am convinced it was time to go to school and so desperately thinking of excuses to get out of it - good stuff).

Anyway, on a good note, my interview at MyBnk went really well. The lady in charge there was really inspiring and we got on really well. The project seems to have a lot of independence for the intern, and it's something that I believe in and think I could actually make a valuable contribution to, so fingers crossed on that front. Also, went and had a drink with the Mulberry TFTs after my interview - they'd had their final assessment today and it all went super for them, so am very pleased. I'm doing my Second School placement at Mulberry in two weeks time, which should be really interesting (all girls, predominantly Muslim, state school with a VIth form - very different to us!)

On a final note, am very much looking forward to the weekend, and as such, I will leave you with this delightful rant from Puja:

Hi girls,

i thought i would email you both and have a rant because the computer system at work has been f**king up since Monday and i have not been able to do any work and it is tres tres annoying. and outlook keeps messing up so i have clients calling up wondering why all of their emails are bouncing back and not coming through. i may scream. but i wont.

also the person i sit next to is somewhat annoying. he constantly (and i mean alllllll the f**king time) slurps/chews/bites away at his nails and hands and its pretty disgusting to be honest. and extremely distracting. but i dont know how nicely to tell him to shut the f**k up.

anyhoo rant over (and i mite add that the slurping is continuing while i write this email) and excitement about Fri!! its going to be lots of fun me thinks. dinner wise - do u want to eat at mine? i though that we could just order a pizza in which would save us having to move and go out and get food. what do u think?

Hwc is stressing about work a lot so we will have to try and cheer her up! she is def coming but will not be at mine till later - prob about 9ish. but she did say that she will prob stay over so we have the whole nite to play 304 and drink! whoohoo!

righty ho - im going to go and have a wander around the office to get away from the disgustingness that is the person sat next to me.

See u 2mrw dudettes!

Love Puja xx

PS - slurp slurp (one of the ppl i work with described it as 're-juicing'. isnt that the most grossest word ever? i think it mite even be worse than 'moist').

Dreams

My gosh, I had some awful dreams last night. I can't figure out whether it is better to have nightmares or to not sleep at all - these being the two delightful options I am currently picking from.

Anyway, my favourite one involved my maths classroom somehow turning into big boat at sea, a huge boat in fact, Titanic-esque. I am teaching my Y7 in our boat-classroom and things are going ok, when suddenly the whole boat somehow crashes or capsizes or something, and we are all at sea. I see loads of my kids just struggling in the water, trying to stay above the waves. Some of them are using their rucksacks as floats. Amazingly, I have a surf board, and I am bodyboarding on it, trying to pick up kids to save them. But they keep falling off and one by one they all disappear under the water until I am left alone in the sea.

Disturbing. I think I may have to concede defeat and go see the doctor soon to get those screws tightened up.

Some thoughts on Y10

I think I am finally taking that long awaited "stress-day". Much vaunted over the last two terms, it is now time. Excellent. Oh it's a slipppery slope though, now that I'll do it once, it means that I can do it again. Kinda like Pringles, dangerous. I am still annoyed at myself that I need to do this, but I think it's the best plan.

In other news, have sorted out my second school placement at Mulberry School for Girls in Stratford. It's an all girls state school with a HUGE ethnic minority percentage and a VIth form too - should be educational.

And finally, it's been about 5 lessons since I've been with top set Y10, and I'm still not impressed. Given that when we were in Y10 we were actually sitting our GCSEs, I am a bit concerned at this lot.

There are one or two in that class that seem to be real stars at maths, but they're nothing like the Y9. In fact, there are a good few "strange ones" in that class, and the general behaviour, motivation, attitude etc. is all a little bit sub-standard. Our HoD has been working really hard with that group, but I've noticed really that Y10 as a whole year group are actually quite a lot of trouble - there are a lot of kids in that year that don't seem to have learning as a priority. And that's besides all the messed up families, SEN issues, and usual teenage turmoil.

Perhaps the Mayfield data handling coursework project isn't really showing them off in their best light as yet, but still...let's just say I'm glad they're not really my class. Oooh but one funny thing in that lesson - one of the boys hands me back a pair of scissors and says something like "sorry Miss, I can't use them, too stiff". Then he and the boys around him watch me to see if I will react to the innuendo. All I can come up with is "perhaps they're brand new scissors" before walking away. I hear their disappointment that I've not taken the bait and laugh inside.

Today and not today

Today was a pretty typical Saturday in lots of ways, and it also wasn't.

Before I start the story, some good points from Friday, when I was liking school for the second day in a row! :

1. My new Y7 class - after some moving round of the Y7 sets, I have a new, slightly bigger, Y7 group. Finally I get to do all the things that I shoulda done right at the start of the year e.g. expectations for behaviour, learning, equipment, attitudes etc. I think sense good things will happen with this class.

2. Expectations, again, for the London Youth games football team. REY laid down the law to the girls, and I think it'll work, so no more moaning and negativity, excellent!

So, onto today. Well, the day itself was pretty standard so let's move on to the evening. Firstly, it was my mother's old school's fundraiser/reunion night. This was actually pretty great - particularly since my mother is President of her old school society, so lots of people know her, and thus want to know me. But, from a less selfish perspective, the evening was really well run, the food was good, the entertainment was great, and I was so proud of my mother's speech and her dance and things, I could see how much she'd put into it and it had all paid off. So yes, stage 1 was good.

After that, I made my way to Nina's birthday party at The Moose Bar off Oxford Street. Before that, another good thing - Bertie called me :) Yes, it was lovely to hear his voice and also find out that he is back in good old Blighty, for one week only (just like Phil Collins) and so I am looking forward to seeing his lovely self. Back to the story then. At Redbridge station I was just minding my own business waiting for a westbound train. An eastbound train pulls into the station and lots of people get off. Among them was a typical Essex couple - tall blondey sporty looking man, shorter blondey slightly under-dressed woman. The woman was grumbling about something, and then, as she passed me, she stopped, turned around, and came up to speak at me. "What are you then? Muslim or Hindu or what?" I could sense trouble so I replied that I had no firm religious beliefs (not true, but really, she should be glad I replied at all). She went on to criticise my dress - I guess her point was that my skirt was too short, but she couldn't really get straight to the point, preferring instead to mumble incoherently. Anyway, I was a bit cross at this, but decided not to retaliate since she looked a bit like a heroin addict and perhaps she might have thumped me, which would make things difficult at school on Monday: "why do you have that black-eye"..."oh because I wasn't dressed like a good Asian girl"...."so did you Dad hit you?"...."no, it was this wiry little white woman at the station". Hmmm.

I couldn't figure out how I felt about this woman. No-one has ever really said that I was dressed inappropriately before, but then part of me was kinda glad that this middle-aged woman was concerned about the "youth" (I heard this word amongst her ramblings). Still, I was annoyed since it seems like she was only critical of me because I wasn't white, when it shouldn't matter - if that's what she believes, she should say it to everyone, regardless of colour. Also, can't believe she lives in Redbridge - where has she been hiding all this time?

CK called me up, asking what I was doing tonight. Turned out he had VIP passes to see the Sugababes (v. cool) but managed to bring Meera and Gid along to The Moose afterwards. This was a good and fun thing - I like them. Was also pleased to see some Forest crew tonight, particularly Ange, Liz and Fi, whom I haven't seen in a good while.

On to the final strangeness then. In the cab on the way home (no nightbus tonight!) Ange and Liz started discussing the finer points of drink driving and why I was such a cretin for doing it. It's true, I agree with them, I'm an idiot for ever driving home after a few drinks, let alone regularly. They tried to make me justify it, and I couldn't really, only on the grounds of convenience. But, despite taking their arguments fully on board, I'm pretty sure I will keep doing it. Why? I dunno really, perhaps because I think it's worth the risk. This would be an ok reason, if it wasn't so darn selfish. Lots of things are wrong in what I do, but I think this is an obvious one that I should try and fix. Add it to the list.

All in all a pretty balanced night, but not looking forward to the planning tomorrow (no hangover - yep I can sense that already!) but loving the weekend :)

Good and funny things about school

Finally a good day :) Because:

1. I got enough sleep.
2. I finally got to teach actual "challenging" maths i.e. something above what I did in primary school. My subject mentor has lent me the top 7 kids in her top set Y9 for me to do A/A* material with, and it's great! Yippee! Also I am working with my HoDs top set Y10 group on Mayfield coursework, which is actually quite good fun when you don't have to spend 10 lessons going over what the mean, median, mode and range before you can even start.
3. Y7 parents' evening - this was very tiring but good to speak to parents and tell them how much their kids have achieved over the year. On a slight downer, lots of lovely troublemakers from the top set will be moved down into my group tomorrow, which will obviously cause some nice chaos, excellent.
4. Hitting the gym. Shoulda done this a long time ago. My general fear that I might actually whack a kid has pleasantly subsided (I am convinced I have that IED thing that the Swiss Re banker who whacked his daughter has, bless her soul. Although obviously not as intense as him).
5. My Professional Tutor is returning! Yay Babs! And apparently she sent my professional mentor in school an email full of criticism about my mentor's lack of work, excellent! Aaah, despite all her controversy, I am a big fan of Babs, can't wait to tell her all the drama.

So, to reward you all for putting up with my grumbling etc. here are some funnies my uncle sent me. Yes, they are to do with exams, but this is supposed to be an education blog. Supposedly.

More complaining about my job

Last night I realised it's been about 3 months since I officially started hating my job. The drain of work is still nice and strong, sigh. Despite only being properly back for one day, and not even having to teach my own classes today (just team teach), it was still pretty hard to bear. Signs that I am slowly giving up the fight include a Y10 waving her phone in my face to deliberately wind me up, and me just ignoring her; a Y7 boy kissing his teeth at me, and me just ignoring him; the usual complaining and bitching in school, and me joining in; and, best of all for last, me fantasising about deliberately sabotaging my application for Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) so that I can get out of my contract. What on earth has happened?

Assuming I just plod through these next 6 weeks to the summer, then come September I think I will be teaching 5 classes of maths, 18 periods a week. This isn't too bad I guess, but I don't really like teaching maths and now this is just more of it. Boooo. I am entirely jealous of the '05s - being the final straight is just so distant.

I don't think it helped that I read an article published by the Mathematical Association about problems recruiting and retaining maths teachers. In his 2004 report, Making Mathematics Count, Professor Adrian Smith estimated that the current shortfall in mathematics teachers is around 3500; that over 30% of those teaching maths had no post A-level qualification in the subject; that the turnover rate doubled between 1991 and 2001; and that a higher proportion of mathematics teachers are reaching retirement age in comparison with teachers of other subjects. Worrying signs for maths education.

Based on this report, researchers from the Institute of Education wondered if there was something specific in maths teaching that was causing the problem. So, between 2004 and 2005 they carried out interviews with a range current and former maths teachers (old teachers, young teachers, from all regions, holding all kinds of positions of responsibility, with varying degrees of teaching experience, and from a variety of backgrounds) to determine reasons for joining and staying in/leaving the profession.

Some key stats from the report include: that 50% of current Heads of Departments do not intend to continue in the role, and 33% intend to seek promotion outside of the department. Of the former maths teachers, 67% are now employed entirely outside of education. One-tenth of the sample of current teachers, and one-fifth of the sample of former teachers reported detrimental effects on their health caused by their jobs, in the forms of stress, anxiety or both.

Main reasons for joining the maths teaching profession: good at maths, had a maths degree, enthusiasm for or interest in maths, practical reasons (e.g. changing from PE teaching when older, availability of maths teaching posts, teaching following redundancy, dislike of current occupation, financial incentives to train), interaction with young people, being a role model, teachers in the family, stability/security/prospects.

Main reasons for leaving: excessive workload, inadequate facilities, lack of collegial support, admin tasks associated with teaching, conflicting responsibilities/overburdened with responsibilities, changes to the curriculum, negative attitudes toward the subject, high-stakes testing, pressure, whole-school issues such as SLT style and pupil behaviour.

The most common reason for staying in maths teaching concerned the enjoyment obtained from work. The second most common reason for staying concerned difficulties with changing careers. Aaaaaaaaargh, this does not bode well.

In other news, yesterday we had our last subject studies day, which is a pretty big hurdle. Next year we will have to teach 6 more days since we will have no subject studies days. We will also have to do cover. Grrr. Anyway, we went on a maths trail in the morning in Westminster - 3.5 hours of unsupervised time, excellent. The trail was reviewed, some new ideas for the four sections (roman numerals, shapes, numbers, calculations) were jotted down, and then the pub was swiftly found. A nice pint by the riverside in the middle of London on a sunny day - beautiful. After that we returned to our Tower Hamlets training venue and discussed WA4 (high expectations...hmmm), the return to Canterbury, resources and sessions for the '07s, and things we wished we had known at the start. Then a lady from NCETM (National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics) turned up to chat to us about it and why we should join. This was a bit pointless - our tutor had already raved a fair bit about it, so why do more? Those who wanted to join, have by now, so no need to keep on at it. At one point the lady said something about "wearing two hats", which is our tutor's tag-line. This made me laugh out loud, I had to break into a fake cough to disguise it.

Well, that is enough rambling for now. I hope your jobs are more enjoyable :)

The last 24 hours

It turns out that next door were filming an advert for Asian TV yesterday. This was quite exciting at 8pm, but far less exciting at 11pm, when the little boy drummers for the advert were still banging their drums. It became rather annoying when they began taking down the sets at 1am. But I got really cross at 4am when they decided to have loud conversations on the phone, outside. Grrr. Also, apparently on Sunday morning they had had a huge row with the people who live on the other side, which woke everyone up too. Naughty neighbours. I was very close to opening my window and shouting out "this isn't a council estate, please be quiet", but then realised that was probably inappropriate, so instead tossed and turned in bed. Consequently, was rather late into our training day this morning, whoops.

Good thing really, managed to miss some of the warm-up introductory speeches, but caught the rest of the day. Was quite good, they had another educational consultant in, this time to talk about "stimulating teaching, exciting learning, and assessment for learning". He was a good speaker, kinda like a stand-up comedian, lots of funny anecdotes and chatter, which warmed up the crowd. Plus, rather than trying to get us to brainstorm and group discuss and all those other standard INSET activities, he just cut out all the nonsense and told us his ideas straight up. Despite the vacant look I carried for most of the day, I appreciated this.

He suggested lots of things for stimulating teaching:

• classroom management - starting as you mean to go on, seating and displays, ground rules, roles in group work, processes to get activities started
• group work - managed through roles and clearly structured tasks
• visual mind maps with interactive links
• sharing learning objectives
• confidence through understanding key vocab
• matching card games
• blockbusters - using software based on the game show
• snowball - this is a great idea - basically start the class off by asking them to think of one of something e.g. one factor of 120, then get them into pairs and challenge each pair to find 4 factors of 120 i.e. double what they already have. After this, the pairs get into fours and they have to come up with 8 factors between them. I like this very much, will try it as a starter soon
• true or false using show-me boards
• question time - pick a group as the experts, give them ten mins to prepare their knowledge, then the rest of the class challenge them with questions
• pass the question - in pairs pupils write the question on the top half of a piece of paper and the model answer on the bottom half, rip up the top halves and pass them around the pairs, who then have to figure out the model answers
• reviews - support groups, revealing answers on IWB, matching dominoes, assessment review e.g through ActiVote (we have these sets in the maths department, I really wanna learn to use them, they seem ace), celebration review e.g. through issue of merit stickers, learning logs with specific targets for each pupil breaking down learning objectives into little tasks so that progress can be easily monitored

He did similar things for learning, emphasising that students are more excited about learning when they feel confident and clear about the work. He suggested using open ended activities that have a degree of creative control but that require understanding rather than just a search for the "right answer". He also encouraged the use of stimuli e.g. videos, sound clips, pictures, writing frames etc. to support work. He said that good writing requires purpose, product and audience. He was very anti-SATS and OFSTED, which surprised me, but which appealed to our staff I think.

Finally, with regards to assessment, I particularly paid attention to his talk on feedback and feedforward. He said that targets and assessment criteria should be shared with the class and put into more friendly language so that students are clear on what they need to achieve (without dumbing the language down too much - students need to be able to speak the language of assessment). He said that we shouldn't mark too much work, but that we should give clear written feedback on the work we do mark, and also give feedforward i.e. targets that pupils should work towards in their next piece of work so that they have something explicit they can do to improve.

So yes, we learnt quite a lot today on our last INSET day of the year. However, bad news too - next year five of our nine INSET days will be spent moving into the new Academy, which doesn't inspire me too much. Further we are expecting HMI next term PLUS a ULT inspection. Rubbish. I better make the most of this half of the term, before things go all crazy again.

In other news, tomorrow I have my last subject studies day, in which I think we are doing some kinda maths trail in London, exciting stuff. Also, I have an interview at MyBnk on Weds after school for a summer internship - I really wanna work there, it's a great idea, very inspiring! Will let you know how that goes.

And if you have time, check this out. Hahaha, pirate chatter, shiver me timbers.

I'm back!

I'm back and running off that weird energy you get when you are knackered. Life is good, my holiday was great, I love Toronto, I love my cousins, I love my uncles and aunts, I love all my family over there and the general wholesome feeling of the place. I think it's the only place I go where I really feel like I have nothing pressing I have to do. Maybe that is what all holidays should feel like.

A more detailed update will follow, but some key thoughts:

1. I am adding The Pursuit of Happyness to my favourite films. I watched it on the flight back too and it almost made me cry both times. Too deep.

2. I wish I had a digital camera to record some of this stuff. I keep meaning to get this sorted. Humph.

3. Three girls from my school-life past have got in touch with me through the wonder of Facebook. This is a very nice and good thing. Two of my uncles are now on Facebook and at least 5 of the teachers from school are on Facebook. This is a kinda nice and good thing, but being the paranoidly guilty soul that I am, I fear only bad can come of this. Obviously no-one will care enough to actually stalk my activities but at any rate I think I will try and be a little less blase with my thoughts and actions. Gone are the days when misdemeanors were quickly forgotten.

And finally I think they are shooting a music video next door - strange. There's a huge red and black limo outside, the house is covered in lights, there's loads of cameras and photolights and stuff, and a red carpet too. Wonder what's happening...

Six weeks of school to go - good thing tomorrow is a training day! Can't believe it's the last bit of term for the year already!