Lots of Stuff

I am in love with the short-stories at www.meandmygoldfish.com. I have only read them, I've not even listened to or watched them yet, but they are amazing. Enough to make me proud to be a Goldfish card owner, albeit in the disguise of a Morgan Stanley Platinum.

I have just been reading the one about the sleep-deprived people. I am liking hyphens today by the way. Entirely sleep deprived. Think I got about two hours, plus woke up in a cold sweat. Not good.

Have had 5 hot drinks today. School was good actually. Despite yawning in the car on the way to school, I was in the zone by 8am and worked through solidly till after 5pm. Literally. Ran some errands and got home by 6pm. Took an hour off to read the papers, play my piano and have some dinner. Then did two hours of marking. And I'm still not properly tired. So essentially I am going to have to trick myself into sleeping because I have the loooongest day ever tomorrow - an 8am knee scan in Romford all the way to the staff meeting/training that will end at 7pm. Then marking. Whoop.

New homework strategy working a treat i.e. set less homework, and stuff they can actually do. Thus far more ticks and far fewer corrections. Did two sets of books today :) Wish I'd thought of the strategy before setting Y10 work, especially since one of the things they had to do was calculate "the shaded area" except my dodgy photocopying meant the shading didn't come through.

Speaking of Y10, we did some group work today, was really good. Room was noisy, but lots was done by most kids. Had one altercation with a girl, but I won, and she will conform, I am not compromising.

And on the line of altercations, crazy H is up to know good, and I am very worried about S. We tried to have a talk at the end of the day, and she just shut down. H, on the other hand, didn't turn up for his detention even though I had his bag hostage. Weirdo. And poor J is getting picked on - there are rumours flying around about her, poor girl, the silly kids don't even understand what they are saying or how offensive it is.

In other news, my favourite word today is JUMBLE, it has a great sound to it, JUMBLE JUMBLE JUMBLE. And also the name Khalil, although it's a Muslim name so not sure it's appropriate for my unborn sons. And on the subject of kids, my Y12s asked me how many I wanted today, and we had a nice chat. They say they can tell I am around 23/24. Smart kids. Not sure whether I should keep revealing personal details to them, where's the boundary?

If Spurs buy Downing we will go down the pan. Hope we beat Reading tomorrow.

Ramble done.

Being a positive teacher

I had a bit of a dodgy night's sleep last night. Lots of hours and everything, but kept getting disrupted, grrr. Thus this morning I was cross and resolved to hand in my resignation first thing. I am prone to dramatic extremes.

Anyway, my crossness rapidly dissolved when I entered my classroom and found my lost blue earring on my table! One of the cleaners had discovered it in another room, which cheered me no end. So I resolved to be positive all day to repay the good karma.

My classes were all really ace - I forget how much fun school sometimes is, and also how much I enjoy it. Obviously soon this feeling will be weighed down by the marking and incident reports and bad behaviour and bureaucracy, but for now it's ok.

The best bits were in Y10, when one of the girls said she really liked maths this year because of me, and when another stayed back after the lesson to show me the extra work she'd done in the holidays. Also in Y9, when I told the kids they only had 15 mins left of the lesson, and they remarked that they had no idea where the time had gone, the lesson had passed by so quickly. I took this as a good sign - when time goes quickly for me it's cos I'm enjoying whatever I'm doing.

Y12 made me laugh too. We're beginning the topic on gender and educational achievement, discussing stereotypes and expectations for different genders. We had a lengthy and comical debate about what we were like as children, and whether it's ok for boys to cry. All five of the girls in my group are "girly girls" so I was surprised to hear that three had been tomboys. Similarly, one of the very laddish and comedy boys told me he'd played with his own Barbies as a kid, setting up families with his dolls and Power Rangers. Funny stuff.

Only my tutor group were tiring today. They just talk too much. My new island table layout doesn't help much since now there are even more people for each child to talk to. However, instead of complaining, I have decided to create an inter-table competition for the class, so that good behaviour is rewarded on an individual and table by table basis. I've made a lovely poster and hopefully the kids will respond to the league table style set-up, and behave better. On the poster making note, I also made a "star table" poster to put up in the window next to my "students of the week" poster. The idea here is that each week the best table out of all of my classes will be photographed and put up in the window for all to see. Obviously by best table I mean the best working kids on a table, not the table itself, that would be rubbish, they are all boring and identical.

I have 25 pages of Love in the Time of Cholera to read (it is getting seriously good, and sad, they are all old and about to finally accept their love) but realised today that my copy of The Reluctant Fundamentalist is due back this weekend, so may try and blitz that in the next 3 nights instead. Tactical.

Yay it's the holidays!

Bah humbug. It's pretty much expected that as soon as the Christmas holidays start, teachers get sick. Booo. I am getting a cold, and am desperately trying to fight it by staying in tonight rather than going on the massive birthday based bender that was originally planned. Not my birthday, a friend's, but a bender nonetheless. But now I can think of nothing more exciting that going to bed early in the hope that I wake up nice and healthy. Fingers crossed, I have a busy day tomorrow.

Yay it's the holidays! Woohoo, 3 weeks of no kids and no teaching! True, the staff still have one more week of a combination of ICT training and packing for the new building, but whatever, will be fine, particularly since I have lots of revelry planned next week, so there will enough to keep me entertained (and hopefully not too hungover!)

The staff pantomime for the kids was awesome, Cinderella, so so funny! I loved how keen loads of the male teachers were to get dressed up as women, and there were loads of kiddie jokes, and jokes for the grown-ups, and inside staff jokes too, excellent! Alas, didn't get to play trumpet after all due to time constraints and problems getting enough cover, but no matter. Thoroughly enjoyed wearing my Santa hat and snowman earrings all day, plus all the Christmas cards and chocolates and games etc. I like the festive spirit! Lovely staff Christmas lunch then a pretty epic drinking session, teachers are such alchies! Woke up not too bad today, but then remembered some of the controversies from the night, and kinda cringed. Heehee, it's all in good fun I'm sure. Will try and stay out of trouble next week.

Yay yay yay, one more time! Now off to wrap the presents and marvel at my excellent Christmas decorating skills. The tinsel all over our stairs and banisters is my special favourite.

Thursday Ramble

Period 1: PSHE with my form. Have observed maybe three/four lessons of PSHE before. Have never studied it as a subject myself nor taught it. Helpfully, our learning manager (head of year) is off sick so I have no idea what we are meant to be studying today. Manage to kill an hour of time with the kids, luckily it was first thing in the morning...by afternoon they were distinctly more challenging.

Period 2: Year 9. Solving equations. I can't believe that there are 14 year olds that still struggle to solve 3x=18. Crazy D has moved down to set 5. I'm not sure whether to whoop; I have a strange concern for that boy. In his place I have Sulky L. You will know her from numerous temper tantrums last year. She sulked today. It was nice to have her back.

Period 3: Year 10. Setting the rules and expectations. I'm no longer stunned by the size of some of the boys. They can tower over me and I can happily rant away. Again, with this class I am shocked at the low ability. Bear in mind that I sat my maths GCSE in Year 10, whilst these kids are mostly level 4 (as a point of reference, most people at my secondary school achieved a level 5 in maths at 11). When we were playing a bit of warm-up maths bingo, some of the questions would frankly insult my Year 7 set from last year, but when I asked the kids if they were finding it a bit too easy, they all resoundingly said no. And they weren't lying. Going over the answers, only one child out of 26 could tell me the square root of 100, and that was after much prompting. A rather menacing child got himself kicked out within the first 2 minutes of the lesson by refusing to sit in his allocated seat. On the street he would have scared me, but in my classroom I have a comfortable feeling of control. Even when the principal tried to persuade me to take him back in, I declined, stating that such attitudes and lack of respect for learning did not belong in our room. I love being able to stick to my guns, not least because it stops the kids steam-rolling me (in theory anyway).

Period 4: Year 8. All the set lists have been lost so we each had to grab any old 20 kids and kill some time with them. Made up an anagram game, which the kids really got into. No maths to be seen :)

My tutor group made me cross in the afternoon. I wanted to set up some circle time stuff with them, but they were all rather restless so in the end I made them sit in silence. I feel guilty about that now a bit, since clearly all the frustrations of the day were unleashed on them. Hopefully they will learn not to chatter when it's lesson time, then I won't have to do that again. Shame we ended sourly since we had been getting on so well in the morning.

And the last thing on a busy school day - got cornered in the corridor by our principal about inspections. We're being OFSTEDed this term, crumbs. In preparation for this, we're having an inspection by our sponsors. And yes, you guessed it, I will be inspected. I completely freaked out with my subject mentor and department after being told. Inspection chills me, probably because it reminds me of the awful summer term. I hate freaking out in front of people, especially when they know me as calm and controlled, and when there's nothing too much to freak about, I'm sure it'll all be fine. Will have to do more to keep on top of things, can't be messing up so early in the term. I knew I'd be on the list, but I'm still not too psyched by it. I kinda feel that it's another hoop to jump through just because I've jumped well through the ones in the past. Similar I guess to the way that kids stop performing well at school, because they know that success will just lead to more work.

Finally may Rhys Jones rest in peace, along with all the many other young people for whom life was too short. I'm not in the mood to talk about guns and knives, except to say that today my Year 8s in maths were talking about the size of a bullet hole as if this was something cool to discover. Why?

Y6 induction day; even newer teachers than me!

Life is still tough. My HoD has once again suggested to me that I take some time off. Humph. I think my generally surly demeanour is warranting attention. I really need to find my smile again. I'm sure it's in my pile of teaching paraphernalia somewhere.

Portfolio still doesn't exist, crumbs! On the plus side, my Y7 and my Y8 books are now marked up to scratch, only 2 hours of work! Also have evaluated my submitting units of work, caught up on the journal, and written up all my observed lesson evaluations. Gosh, look at all that paperwork - is that what we got into this for? Well, rather the paperwork than the politics (I think two more people have been asked to leave/have resigned in the last week, it's awful).

Y6 induction day today. Some lovely and very bright ones; also some rather boisterous and potentially very challenging ones. Heard a rumour that one turned up in a jumpsuit and hoodie with matching diamante earring. Said boy had a freak out during an English lesson - told his English teacher to "f*ck off", hurled a chair across the room and then stormed out. Nice. I look forward to it. Maybe I'm lucky not to have a tutor group after all.

Last CFG (Critical Friends Group) was tonight. Met most of the '07s from our area. Can't believe how young and innocent they all are. Actually, more like I can't believe how old and wise I sound. They're all desperate to hear advice on teaching, which is understandable - you hear so many scare stories that you cling to anything that might help. Tried to reassure them, and also secretly felt quite proud at how far we've all come. One of the other '06s in my school has just become second in department in science - props to her indeed :) In truth though, as much as other people's tips can help, it's not until you're in your school with your own classes that you can really start to develop as a teacher.

In other news, thought I'd give you a health update. Hair still not being washed with product; it's thicker and wilder than ever. Needs a trim actually. Have definitely gone down a trouser-size and there's some serious flattening of the stomach. Have a shocking sore throat - if I could lop my tonsils out with a spoon I think I would. In preparation for some serious weekend hangover - got some big birthday lashes lined up. Oh and maybe a bit of work for the old final assessment!

And finally, a shout out to Mr Read and his blog - thanks for the name drop and keep up the good work, very entertaining reading! And for the reminder that there's time for fun in all of this madness!

Catch up and upcoming stuff

Think it has been a while since I posted. Busy busy as usual. Mostly being hungover. Whoops.

School happened, can't remember anything too exciting or of note, except that we only have one week till half-term! Ooooh and also this week Y11 are away on study leave and Y10 are on exams, yay! Surely this will become boring at some point, but at the moment it sounds pretty good to me.

Yet another Sunday not spent lesson planning. I don't know when I reached the stage where I thought I didn't have to work on a Sunday (by work, I mean specific school work....of course I still spend lots of time doing other work-type things). Today, then, I wrote two covering letters for two summer project applications - one working with Business in the Community and one working with MyBnk. Both sound exciting projects that we can really get our teeth into and contribute something of value. Was also gonna apply for the Institute of Philanthropy, and this one at Hansabank about developing a stress diagnostic tool for banks, but after it taking soooo long just to write the first two, I couldn't be bothered. Plus the Hansabank one is for 4 weeks, and it's in Estonia (yep, clearly I didn't read the application info properly the first time round) so scrap that - like I'm gonna work for 4 out of my 5 weeks of summer!

What else? Went out on the lash for Suze's birthday on Friday night, good solid fun, my feet are still cut up though, and the Corona hangover was shocking (think it might have been the sambuca actually). Lots of lovely drama anyway, including drunken idiots sneaking into photos and causing fights, and other drunken hilarious dancers getting into trouble everywhere, funny funny.

Spent most of Saturday whimpering about and watching the rubbish FA Cup final (have seen more exciting U11 girls' football matches, really). Went out with the girlie wirlies to Binky Bina Ballerina's birthday dinner on Saturday night, a nice and funny affair full of reminiscing and silly chatter. Binky I wish you were in London more. Sparrow, I hope you are getting better on some level, and Puja, you need a nickname....I can't believe you don't have one! HW props to you for bailing on your other plans for us, good stuff.

Taught them to play 304, a card game like bridge, except more mysterious. Played it with the crazy Venice cards, they loved it. Am now convinced that we are all grandmas...but very excited about the thought of a whole evening playing cards and Mahjong!

Meant to hit the gym hard today after all the junk we ate last night, but that plan was scuppered by:

1. My mother holding a committee meeting in our lounge, thus requiring me to help with stuff. This was particularly funny since at the next reunion thingie my mother's committee is doing a big dance and so lots of time was spent dancing around the front room.
2. My father inviting my uncle and family round to look at the new staircases (what an exciting invitation! I bet you're all jealous I've not invited you round to see the stairs). This, in principle, wouldn't have involved me, but my uncle has two young sons, Krishan (4) and Danushan (3), who required entertaining. Thus, instead of crosstraining and lifting at the gym, we watched 45 minutes of Power Rangers, counted chairs in the lounge, talked to ants, learnt about pipes, and ate food so that we would become big and strong. Fun times!

Well this week is hectic hectic with highlights including a coach matching event on Tuesday, OFSTED on Thursday, and the HSBC trip on Friday. This time next week I'll be in Toronto, woohoo!

Have a good week!

Yippeeeeeee!!

Yes, that yippee can only be about one thing...making it to Easter break! I am patting myself on the back as I speak, making it a little difficult to type. Indeed, there were occassions during this term where I doubted I would make it, but good thing time just kept on rolling forward. And now here we are with a glorious two weeks off!

The kids were absolutely lovely today, perhaps because we had "fun" lessons and it was a half day. I bonded with my Y11s and joked with the Y9s, which was ace. The KS3 and KS4 assembly singing went great, I'm still on a high from it! The kids were all so excited and joined in with Stand By Me and we all danced around on stage too, it was so funny! We even had kids waving their hands side to side like in concerts and ooooohing with the backing singers. Aside from the staff band, there were some excellent singing and drama pieces from Y10 and Y11, plus everyone got a Cadbury's Creme Egg at the end of it (bribery from SLT, but whatever!). We got everyone outta school by 2pm and then it was bliss. So, yes, we ended on a high.

In other news, on Thursday I caught some Y10s bunking maths by hiding in the fire exit. The whole area stank of skunk and so I filled in a report suspecting them of using drugs in school. Obviously they ran away before I could get SLT to check their bags, and obviously they are denying it, but if they get an exclusion for this, that'll take my tally to seven. This will leave me needing three more to get to my year end target of contributing to ten exclusions (temporary, not permanent). Sure, it's awful to aim for something like this but if you think of it as enforcing discipline, well, it's not so bad. Plus, seriously, how audacious - to bunk maths and then take drugs during the lesson instead, shocking!

I'm on my way out now, but some solemn advice for the TFs can be found here (read particularly the first comment - that guy is clearly a bit of an English teacher). And also check out the video below of kids from my school. They're all from the year before I started, but it'll give you an idea of what they're like. Am especially made all warm inside by the backing track to the piece, and also that some of them were sweet enough to have made it.

First Day Back...

...was alright. Pretty good in fact. The kids said they'd missed me and that the cover teachers "were rubbish" :) Felt guilty for not marking most of their cover work, but there's aaaaacres of it. With Y11 some things that made me laugh:

Me: Pick a number between 1 and 5.
N: 10.
Rest of class: Derrrrrr, between 1 and 5 you thicko, etc....
Me: Everyone makes mistakes.

Later in the same lesson:
Me: So then we multiply 0 by 5, which gives us 5.
Class: No it doesn't, derrrrrrr, it's 0. It's always 0.
Me: Aaah yes, that was a deliberate trick question.
Class: Teachers always say that when they mess up.

Despite minimum planning, lessons went really rather well. Have been inspired to make my lessons more creative, hence tonight have done lots of planning. Looking forward to Friday with Y7 where I'm teaching "multiplication from around the world" (with crazy techniques from China, Russia, Egypt and the Western world). Also made pretty ActivStudio flipcharts. Am slowly becoming addicted to ActivStudio, very baaaad. There's always more you can do to your flipcharts (kinda like powerpoint presentations, but on software that works with Prometheon whiteboards), but I have decided to cut myself off for the night. Besides, there's only so many pretty animations and sounds you can throw in to keep the kids on task; it's like anything else in economics - every additional unit has marginally less impact.

What else? Contemplated setting up an Ultimate Frisbee club at school in the summer term. Made dinner (an exceptional circumstance for me since my folks tend to coooooooook away meaning I don't have to!) - a random concoction of bacon and leeks in a cheesy roux with spaghetti. Yummy. Feel like hair is unbearably greasy, although am sure it's really not. Still love my "new" room, and dancing around to Nathan. Spoke to Berts about Venice, sounds very promising, am looking forward to it mightily.

Just figured out why my wrists hurt when I played the piano earlier - think I've given myself RSI. Time to stop. Mmmm bed.