First day back with the kids. Was kinda dreading it, but actually it went really well. Despite all the time-wasting, managed to plan the week's worth of lessons, and the sudoku starters went really well. Found out I only have 7 more lessons with my Y9s before their SATS, and only 7 more lessons with my Y12s before their AS paper, good drama!
Was cool to have my tutor group back again, and there's just something about the summer term that makes me happy, it's just nice to work in the sunshine I think. Today has been a lovely day weather-wise, plus I don't have any marking to do, and I got to have a nap, so generally I am in an awesome mood.
Other good things include the wonderful Dina sorting out the half-term escape, woo hoo! I am also pretty psyched about the weekend, since I have decided to get all my planning done tonight and tomorrow night after all, so that I can play all weekend. We're going to see Avenue Q on Friday night, which will be hilarious, and then a big night on Saturday, and I am trying to wangle my Sunday with X, so it'll all be good fun I think, and thus I am looking forward to it. And then it's only 4 weeks to half-term, and only one of them is actually a full week of teaching for me, so that'll be awesome. I shouldn't get too used to four-day weeks, it'll mean after half-term will be shocking. Oh well, enjoy the present right?
My school is an academy so we're not part of the NUT strike on Thursday. This is controversial in my opinion, since even though our sponsors set our salaries, they are in accordance with government pay scales, plus, more importantly, the whole point of the union is that the members stand together, whether an issue directly affects them or not. Collective action looses power if some members don't take part, and I feel a bit like my right to stand up for my colleagues has been taken away without my consent. Another negative of the academy system...there's no way the whole country could strike for the staff of all the academies because you can only enter a dispute with one party at a time, and so those people not employed by academies wouldn't be able to take part in any pay dispute we had with our sponsor. The other thing that isn't right about this is that just because we work for an academy at the moment, that doesn't mean we always will, in fact, there are so many more government run schools, that chances are our future employers won't be academies, so we should get a chance to stand up for our future.
Anyway that rant over, another thing I want to ramble about is homophobia in school. Two kids in my tutor group came to me today and said they had been joking about "lesbian friends" and that a girl in Y11 had gone a bit nuts and threatened them. I spent some time trying to explain that it's offensive to say what they were saying, just like racial terms can be offensive if used in the wrong way. The kids just couldn't see the similarities - they knew and agreed that using certain racial terms in certain way could be offensive, but were adamant it was ok to joke about homosexuality because it "was just a joke" and "it's not real anyway". I'm not sure how to educate them about this without being seen to promote homosexuality, which, as far as I understand, is a no-no, particularly in our "Christian-ethos academy". Hmm, something to think about.
Right, time to lesson plan. In front of the football of course.
Was cool to have my tutor group back again, and there's just something about the summer term that makes me happy, it's just nice to work in the sunshine I think. Today has been a lovely day weather-wise, plus I don't have any marking to do, and I got to have a nap, so generally I am in an awesome mood.
Other good things include the wonderful Dina sorting out the half-term escape, woo hoo! I am also pretty psyched about the weekend, since I have decided to get all my planning done tonight and tomorrow night after all, so that I can play all weekend. We're going to see Avenue Q on Friday night, which will be hilarious, and then a big night on Saturday, and I am trying to wangle my Sunday with X, so it'll all be good fun I think, and thus I am looking forward to it. And then it's only 4 weeks to half-term, and only one of them is actually a full week of teaching for me, so that'll be awesome. I shouldn't get too used to four-day weeks, it'll mean after half-term will be shocking. Oh well, enjoy the present right?
My school is an academy so we're not part of the NUT strike on Thursday. This is controversial in my opinion, since even though our sponsors set our salaries, they are in accordance with government pay scales, plus, more importantly, the whole point of the union is that the members stand together, whether an issue directly affects them or not. Collective action looses power if some members don't take part, and I feel a bit like my right to stand up for my colleagues has been taken away without my consent. Another negative of the academy system...there's no way the whole country could strike for the staff of all the academies because you can only enter a dispute with one party at a time, and so those people not employed by academies wouldn't be able to take part in any pay dispute we had with our sponsor. The other thing that isn't right about this is that just because we work for an academy at the moment, that doesn't mean we always will, in fact, there are so many more government run schools, that chances are our future employers won't be academies, so we should get a chance to stand up for our future.
Anyway that rant over, another thing I want to ramble about is homophobia in school. Two kids in my tutor group came to me today and said they had been joking about "lesbian friends" and that a girl in Y11 had gone a bit nuts and threatened them. I spent some time trying to explain that it's offensive to say what they were saying, just like racial terms can be offensive if used in the wrong way. The kids just couldn't see the similarities - they knew and agreed that using certain racial terms in certain way could be offensive, but were adamant it was ok to joke about homosexuality because it "was just a joke" and "it's not real anyway". I'm not sure how to educate them about this without being seen to promote homosexuality, which, as far as I understand, is a no-no, particularly in our "Christian-ethos academy". Hmm, something to think about.
Right, time to lesson plan. In front of the football of course.
