Quick Ramble

My job is being advertised in the TES - wow, kinda final huh? I'm glad glad though, phew, means my department will be sorted for September.

Aaargh, I'm so tired. I should learn that drinking on Sunday always makes me feel rough on Monday.

8E were naughty today, I can't control them, and now without a Head of Year, it's even tougher. Am starting not to care though. Bad bad. I have 81 more teaching days to go, I have to keep caring. Can see it slipping though. For example, I no longer set detentions for missed homework with my Y10s - partly because they don't come, partly because it's not worth the battle, partly because it means I can mark the books faster because fewer students have done the work. JADED.

What else? Horoscope here...

Bitter experience has taught you that, thrilling as others’ descriptions of ideas, ventures or even intriguing individuals may be, you must check things out yourself. Still, the dramatic changes ushered in by the Virgo eclipsed Full Moon two weeks ago got you wondering whether you’ve been overly cautious. You have. And if you refuse to go along with this week’s developments, you’ll not only miss out on worthwhile information about what’s happening, you could also miss out on the opportunities they bring. During periods of transition such as this, there are no guarantees. Stick with things that are certain and you’ll soon be watching others overtake you in the fast lane.

My gosh, take a risk, leave the plan, stop being cautious...are they talking about Virgos?

And finally, heard the new Kooks song, good fun indeed.

Roll on the busy busy week - but first, BED.

PS It's National Bed Month!

The news said today would be miserable but...

...not for me! I am feeling pretty damn good. It's 21:35 and all that I needed to do today is done. I feel like I have nothing that I have to do right now. It's a good feeling.

Listening to Lupe. Sick. Maybe I feel a bit like a Superstar myself.

Today was definitely a stay day. I taught three good lessons, had minimum drama, and maximum support from my mentor, head of department, and induction tutor. All these pep talks are adding up. Really, I can't quit, it'd let too many people down. Plus today I feel good about it all. I just have to keep remembering that there are good days.

So I got my observation feedback and it was pretty good. She said that she had seen me teach better, but given that I was hyper on Friday, it was reasonable. Seems my energy came out in the good bits, since I got high ratings for teaching and behaviour for learning. Progress, challenge and assessment were all rated a bit lower, but I'd like to think that was because my teaching made the kids find the work easy, rather than because the work was easy. It patently wasn't easy - converting between fractions and decimals, that's tough stuff for level 3a/4c 11 year olds!

I think the bit that made me feel the best today was the fact that ALL of my Y9s turned up to my whole class detention after school. I was expecting like three of them or something, but apparently my rage at them got the message across. So seriously did the kids take the detention that one parent phoned in, and two got notes from their folks to excuse them. I let the kids that had behaved on Friday go within the first 5 minutes, and everyone else was really well behaved in the detention. My head of department remarked that this was a really good thing - that the kids want to learn from me and they respect me after all. Hopefully this is true, and now that I've been cross with them, they'll start behaving. Y10 were also better today, good.

What else? I played this memory game with all my classes today, it's ace! And hilarious that I can do the same stuff with 11 year olds and 15 year olds and they all get on with it. Also, this article about sleep and mobile phones. I've taken to putting my phone on proper silent at night to stop me waking up, but occasionally I mess this up and put it on super loud instead, leading to a massive shock if it goes off at night.

So fingers crossed tomorrow is as good. And that Spurs win. Time to cane the rest of my scrabble games and then for the early night I have been looking forward to all day :)

Winner!

Yep, I feel like a winner today :) Since I can't drink yet, have been chomping on these amazing Jelly Belly jelly beans, yum yum!

My final assessment went really really well. I got graded "very good", which is the top grade CCCU gives to TFs. My portfolio was pretty hot, almost everything was there, just need to do some more work on assessment. My observed lesson could hardly have gone better - the kids were great, really keen and on the ball, no behaviour problems, all engaged and on task - it was a thing of beauty. Only minor issue was time, but I dealt with that. My favourite part of the interview was when my assessor said to me that I taught like someone who'd been teaching for 2 or 3 years, and that I was a natural. Hahaha, a natural teacher, who'd have thought it eh? He also said I should start laying the ground work to move up the ladder because there's lots of potential for responsibility. Exciting stuff! So yeah, I'm feeling pretty good right now :)

It's weird though, because recently I was really not enjoying this job, and obviously things are still tough, but I think my faith in me has been slightly restored. Maybe I could be a teacher after all....

But I wonder what it would be like to change schools? I'm always ranting about the problems in school, but my department and so many of my colleagues are just amazing, I don't think I'd want to go somewhere else. Really, especially with my department, they're all just so supportive and lovely, I don't think other departments could compare. Today, for example, after my observed lesson, they were all waiting outside to see what had happened - how sweet! And when I couldn't walk up the stairs they helped me get all the resources and organised room changes and sorted things out for me. I really owe them.

Wow, I think I am a wee bit emotional today, heehee.

Ooh but in other news, D in Y8 was back in my lesson today after 4 weeks in the LSU. He lasted 20 minutes before he started simulating a sexual act and so I had to kick him out. Also, heard a scary rumour that I may in fact be a Y11 tutor next year. Errr, no thanks.

Must stop the negativity....winning thoughts, winning thoughts...I'm a winner, yay!

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?

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').

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.