Friday

Friday was really rather good.

In the style of the drama department, here are my WWWs (What Went Wells)

1. It was sunny.
2. All my lessons went well, including great banter with Y7.
3. I taught a solo cornerfootball PE lesson, and it didn't all go belly-up.
4. Twenty-four girls turned up to the indoor lunchtime kickaround...some lovely bonding between Y9 and Y7.
5. I completed all my mid-term reports and marking.
6. Staff kickabout after school was wicked fun.
7. Lucky Strike Night was even more fun including some people actually "striking it lucky" woo hoo! (if you've not been to The Langley, go, it's a lovely little bar with reasonable drinks and a party atmosphere)
8. Having an amazing massage by the people from Urban Chill.
   
9. Managed to catch the last train home despite actually missing it at Holborn (for some reason it was waiting at Leytonstone...I'd like to think it was waiting just for me).
10. I am only slightly hungover today and didn't spend that much money.

Here are my EBIs (Even Better Ifs):

1. I hadn't been poorly tackled by an 11 year old and didn't have a swollen knee.
2. After said tackle, another annoying 11 year old (with gross eczema - but that's an aside) singing "you fell over, you fell over" at the top of her lungs. Thanks.
   
3. I didn't confess to lots of TFers last night that I was accused of perving on the Y11 weightlifting boys by my Y9 girls.
4. I hadn't given the Y9 girls a reason to think I was perving at all (I was just getting the bibs from the boys' gym, honest!)
5. My lungs were smoke-free today (I think I have passively undone all my hard gym work...and maybe a tiny bit actively too....that's the guilt talking).
6. F in Y10 wasn't blanking me (it is weird when a kid is cross with you).

Other good news:

1. I managed to reverse park on to the curb!
2. I got paid.
3. Keble women are cuppers champions!
4. I got an email from Ladun - hi Laddles, how are you? So great to hear things are going well for you....sounds like you're in heaven! And you know I believe in heaven more than in hell.
5. Plans to go to Italy in the break are rolling forward!
6. I managed to put some money into my ISA - saving is a real achievement for me.
   

Other not-so-good news:

1. My parents disrupted my afternoon nap by arguing. How inconsiderate. I wonder if I'll ever move out....
   
2. I have to read about sixty different articles on dyscalculia and EAL needs so that I can make a presentation for our Subject Studies Day on Monday (I think we're being OFSTEDed - great).
3. The bargainous trousers I bought today have a button missing - maybe this is why they were bargainous?
   

And on a final positive note, we got back from the temple (spiritual props to me) about an hour ago, and it was closing early because there's a lunar eclipse or something tonight - how exciting!

Not so good stuff staff

Today we had a maths department meeting. It went on from 3:45pm to 5:00pm. Three out of seven members of the department were absent. There was no agenda and nothing pressing to sort out. However, it seems that even in teaching one needs to put in "face time". And so we did.

We discussed almost precisely nothing to do with maths. Instead, the more senior members of the department began to berate the Principal of the academy (as they are oft prone to do). Today's target was her mention in the morning meeting of how more "middle class children with two parents and an independent school background" were applying to the academy (admissions figures were released today, and we're 21 kids away from having a fully subscribed Y7 in September - a huge change from the past). I don't know if this stuff about the types of kids is true or not, but it certainly put everyone's backs up. Big time. Particularly the comments about two parent families - a number of members of staff are single parents and really took offence at this. Further, the "old staff" are really anti-change, especially anything that tries to move us towards the independent school model (which is essentially what our Principal seems to have in mind). Another "offence" has been added to her list by the staff.

Anyway, much bitching and grumbling and negativity later and nothing had been resolved. Now I'm all for people getting things off their chests (see, I'm doing it now myself) but all they seem to do is moan and moan and moan and never offer anything themselves on how to fix things. Further, they never say anything to her face about how they feel, preferring instead to bitch behind her back. I hate that two-faced kinda stuff - how is she supposed to appease the staff if no-one is telling her what she is doing wrong? It's all about necessary constructive criticism. You've got to give people a chance before slamming them down.

A big problem is that most of the staff aren't open-minded. They were all anti-academy from the start and wouldn't even give things a go. I'm pleased to say I did keep an open mind about the academy and the Principal, choosing to form my own opinion of her rather than listening to all the propaganda. Admittedly now I'm not a big fan of our Principal myself, but I'm willing to give what she says a try because that's what I'm here to do and because it is nowhere near my place to tell her how to run things. However, lots of the other members of staff are in a position to help change things, but they take what I think to be the easy way out. Maybe they have their reasons for how they feel, but still, when it comes down to it, they have their roles and duties and they need to fulfil them. But rather than pulling together and giving things a go, they rebel. Faced with such a hostile team, she's almost guaranteed to fail.

To me this meeting was an entire waste of time and left me feeling pretty negative about the school and its future. As if there aren't enough things to worry about without staffroom politics too.

Good stuff staff

I played my trumpet today for the first time in ages. It was great! Toot toot toot, heehee!

Our very proactive-enthusiastic-gungho staff have been piling on the extra-curriculars, so alongside drinking with them, and moaning about school with them, and maybe doing a bit of teaching with them, I've been playing indoor footie with them, and started up a bit of a band with them too. Hurrah!

Despite my inability to "visualise" the tune (apparently "Downtown" is a well known song...hmmm.....) the first rehearsal was good fun and games. I think music kinda feels like exercise. Maybe that's why I like it.

In other staff related news, yesterday afternoon was the first positive tea, hosted by the MFL department. The basic idea is that every few weeks a different department will host a tea for the staff and talk a bit about themselves and the exciting work they've been doing. It's a really good way to get people together to share ideas and thoughts and generally bond us all (very important since there's still a bit of a split between the old comprehensive staff and the new academy staff). So another hurrah for the positive teas! Yum yum cakes and eclairs.

And finally, I helped break up a fight on my way to morning registration (it wasn't even 8:30am yet!) And I did a PE cover lesson. Some might say I'm almost a real teacher.

Two Good Days

Yes, I have had two good days in school. Surprising stuff.

Sure, there have been fights and staff politics and detentions and ICT problems and lost exercise books and kids bunking lessons and running around like a mad thing and constant attitude, but on the whole they've been good. Maybe I am just learning to cope better....?

Hmmm, no, scrap that. Coping is not entirely featuring prominently in my life at the moment. Well, I'm not not coping, but I feel kinda weird. Like I'm not really me. I've had this before but still don't really know what it is. Strange. Maybe I am a medical curiousity? Or maybe it's just the flu.

I have had a spectacularly little amount of sleep due to the continuing specialness that is insomnia, and I think this has led me to take everything in my stride. Possibly because I can't be bothered to let anything get to me. Kids quacking in my lessons, bitching about each other, shouting and swearing across the corridor, talking about illegal substances etc. - all have been subtly ignored. As one of the PE staff said to me today, I am a machine.

But even machines occassionally malfunction. I think it may be time to take that first ever sick day!

Before you start thinking I'm being a nutter, don't worry, I'm pretty much fine, just a lot in my head. Clearly more in my head than Nelly Furtado....check out these lyrics from "Say It Right":

In the day

In the night
Say it right
Say it all
You either got it
Or you don't
You either stand or you fall

Ruuuubbbbbbish. How am I not earning more than her?! That said, "Give It To Me" (Timbalanda feat. Nelly Furtado and Justin Timberlake) is wicked, diss chat and great beats.

And also, thank you Jade for putting up with my ridiculous questionning about musical theory...it's starting to make sense!

I'll leave you with this from a comment from another blog: "If you don't know who you are, a classroom, like a boxing ring, is a painful place to find out." Deep.

Other Blogs

If you're reading this at work and looking for more distractions, these blogs were nominated for some kinda Metro award and so should technically be quite good.

Random Acts of Reality - about an ambulance worker in London. Pretty deep stuff sometimes, and other times just the life of a normal bloke.

ScaryDuck - this looks like funny ramblings to me, excellent. In particular, read Friday 23rd's post on advice for school kids...essentially "don't puke in your shoes". Good advice for all I think.

And for the common-or-garden political economists out there

Evanomics - a BBC blog by economist Evan Davis, who attempts to make sense of the world using economics. Good luck with that one.

I HATE LESSON PLANNING.

Le Weekend

It's Sunday and I am my usual Sunday-self i.e. busy distracting myself from lesson planning. As an added bonus, I have slightly lost my voice and think I may have some weird eye lurgie. Yuck.

Aaaanyway, le weekend seems to be zooming by, but it's been a pretty good one, mainly because I have managed to distract myself from school worries for at least some of the time.

Went to Potato Potter's birthday/leaving drinks on Friday night at the lovely Alexandra public house in Clapham Common. A busy-but-not-too-busy place with nice and sleepy lighting, and only slightly extortionate pricing (well, I do compare everything to the Goose!)...well worth a visit. Met lots of Potato's nice friends, which gave me ample opportunity to practice my banter without consequence. Gotta love the banter. Clearly Potter will forever treasure her spontaneously created "bag of junk" and I hope she enjoyed the rest of her night. I wish her all the best in Paris and look forward to a Disney reunion over there soon...I need my fix of planning and list making!

Saturday was spent in Cambridge for OUWAFC varsity. Highlight of the footie season and exciting stuff all round. Sadly the Furies lost, but the Blues won 4-3 after penalities (0-0 even after extra-time) so congrats to them! The Furies game was dramatastic, with Oxford leading the Tabs 2-1 at half-time, but ultimately losing 4-3. Jonno pointed out that it's ridiculous the Tabs coulda scored 4 when that's more than they've got in the last two v-days put together. I think the 4-5-1 formation may have had a bit to do with that. Anyway, good drama bits:

• Furies opening the scoring from a shot in the box off a free-kick (I think...?)
• A spectacular vollied goal by the Furies
• The Tabs breaking away and scoring from a cross in the box
• A potentially equalising Tab goal being disallowed for off-side
• Oxford conceding a dubious penalty (and goal) for handball
• Two balls on the pitch during a Furies attack (when Jij tried to clear the imposter ball from the pitch, she managed to hit the real ball that Sprouse was running with, thus knocking them both off the pitch...really, what are the chances?!)
• A Henry-esque Jijeridoo finish
• A bit of a goal-keeping/defensive error leading to an awful Tab goal being conceded
• The Tabs fully exploiting the big space between midfield and defence and scoring, again through a cross in the box.

All in all a really good game to watch from a spectator's point of view, but commiserations to the Furies for that one. Still, they were definitely better at abusive chants and probably caused all kinds of destruction as revenge last night in poor Tabland. Heehee.

In other news, the building is going well and we now have a fully operational third bathroom, whoop! Also, my room is being rearranged soon, thus giving me more room, whoop again! My folks are currently busy moving things around and tidying, so I think hiding in my room is a really positive contribution. I swear I am living through adolescence now. Better late than never...

More than teaching

During the Summer Institute in Canterbury they taught us lots and lots of things. I can only remember about 50% of it all, and outta that 50%, I am still clueless about the relevance of a fair chunk. That's the weird thing about the TF program - whilst most other teacher training programs provide professional development and support as you go along, TF tends to chuck mountains of it at you in the summer when you have very little idea of what they are talking about. Or why they insist on doing it all so early in the morning.

One of the things they taught us about "professional values" was about where to draw the line between your pupils and yourself so that you remain in a position of authority. I also vaguely remember something about how to deal with matters that students tell you in confidence that probably require referral somewhere. But these things aren't instilled in me...those people who know me well know I like to "fix" things, regardless of any lines between teachers and pupils and how disasterous my attempts maybe.

Why am I rambling about this? Well, today, I was walking up the stairs to the maths deparment and T in Y8 was lurking there. I ask him where he's meant to be - he tells me he doesn't know. I offer to walk him to the office to figure it out. He eventually squeaks out the fact that he's been moved to a new French class but he doesn't wanna go in cos he's "rubbish at French". T has quite a few BESD issues (behavioural, emotional and social difficulties) but I manage to persuade him to go into his lesson by reasoning with him (as opposed to hollering at him). I am buoyed by this.

So later, I walk past the main school door and see that F in Y10 had walked out of another lesson. I don't know F too well, but well enough to check she is ok when she's out of class. We start talking and she tells me that if I was smart, I'd walk away. She's really upset, but I walk away. But as I'm walking I think this is wrong, she clearly wants someone to talk to, go back. So I go back. And she starts talking, about lots of things. Like how she had to leave her class cos otherwise she woulda hit someone, and she just wants to run away from school cos it's driving her mad. And how there's no point to school or to anything cos her life is just crap. This is past the point where I shoulda drawn this line and sent her to talk to someone else. But I don't.

She tells me her dad died when she was in Y7 and she's been in anger management and counselling for about three years and that she can't really deal with things on her own. She's been almost crying the whole time she's saying this and then her voice really cracks and she says she's screwed things up. I ask her how. And she says now that she is trying to be independent and make her own decisions, she keeps making the wrong ones.

And then she comes out to me.

Yes, despite my previously borderline psycho behaviour when it comes to dealing with this stuff, weirdly I remain a magnet for the gay world. Some of you will be proud, I didn't entirely freak out - I more felt really sorry for the kid cos she came out to the wrong "friends" and now it's spreading around Y10 and other kids are picking on her and calling her names and even threatening to bash her. The thing is, she's really bright, like one of the smartest kids in Y10, and plays on loads of sports teams and is a peer mentor and stuff like that. Lots of potential to really go far. Or get outta our ghetto at any rate.

So obviously I figure all this stuff she is telling me is something I should tell someone about. However, I don't remember exactly what they said in the summer about all this kinda stuff and what I'm meant to do. Naturally then, I jump in feet first and try and "fix" things by telling a gay teacher in the English department and also this girl's Head of Year (who, I subsequently find out is also gay...my gaydar is so non-existent). Anyway, I left them to sort it all out thinking my bit was done.

It was only later that I realised I'd more or less completely betrayed this kid's confidence and broken her trust, cos if she'd wanted to tell them all, she could have. I should have checked it was ok with her before rambling her business to the staffroom. Damn. I guess this is what they mean by on-the-job training...learning from your screw-ups has to address a QTS standard somewhere. And now it's hard to stop thinking about this...this is why teaching is about so much more than just teaching.

Nice words

Am once again remarkably busy, mainly doing things I shouldn't be doing.

If you want to be doing things you shouldn't doing on March 2nd, get in touch! That's not a proposition, before you get the wrong idea...well, not a proposition from me at any rate! It's a plug for our random singles event that we're hosting at Langley's in Cov G...yet another plan to put the love back in our lives!

Read these nice words from a fellow TFer describing her experiences in the Guardian Education section (yes, she gets the Guardian, I get this blog...)

Some of my own classes, on the other hand, had been passed on to me in boxes marked "highly flammable". My year 11s are like fireworks: full of energy, light and noise, usually set off by each other, but sometimes by poetry and by my questions to them. There is a fine balance, which I haven't yet found, between igniting excitement and discussion, and controlling the sparks that fly off in all directions.

Is that a simile? Hmm, I like the description anyway, it's almost spot on.

The To-Do List

Despite calling it a To-Do list, it's actually probably more accurately a To-Think-About list. Sure I have loads of things to do, but before I can do most of them, I have to think about them. It's the effort of thinking about them that makes me put off actually doing them. This is because it's against my nature to do things without thinking them through first. My life history shows that efforts at spontaneity have seldom had positive outcomes.

Basically I'm a very keen planner. Keen is an understatement...I love being prepared. Well, I used to love it, but slowly I am finding it harder and harder to make and stick to plans. So now it's all about being plan-free and just taking things as they come.

Today I didn't have a single lesson plan for what we did, and things worked alright (miraculously!) This new found confidence in free-styling is obviously reckless. As my Canterbury professional tutor tells me "if you fail to prepare, prepare to fail." Wise words.

So yes, this weekend I will aim to get back on the planning (both school and otherwise). Basically, I should add "do my to-do list" to my to-do list.

In other news, it took me 75 mins to do the usual 15 minute journey home. It was due to some major hold-up on the A406. Loooooads of cars at a stand-still, mostly with only one person in each of them. Car-pooling anyone? On the plus side, some smart people co-ordinated us driving the wrong way back up the slip road to escape the traffic. There were too many people doing illegal manoeuvres for the onlooking law-enforcers to do anything about it. Excellent, the power of the majority!


On the even more plus side we feasted on nutella and banana pancakes, yum!

How good do these look?

Day 101

Yep, that's correct, today was my 101st contact teaching day at the Academy. We're contracted to 195 contact days a year (aka teaching days; as opposed to training days) so yippee, we're over halfway. Although when you think that I've got 94 more days to go, well....no, mustn't wish my life away!

I was spreading this prime piece of knowledge around the staff today and M8 (I have decided to refer to the other maths teachers by their classroom codes) said it was strange that I count down days. I said it was something that I always did, and that this was a massive improvement since in my last job I used to count down hours, and, in extreme cases, minutes. She said that it was better to just take each day at school as just a day, rather than something to get through on the great quest to the summer break. I guess I kinda agree with her, but what is better and what is actually possible are different things.

This led us to an interesting discussion about teaching and how there was no point really counting down towards the break because teaching is always with us. I'm pretty good at "zoning out" my teaching world, although only when I am really concentrating on something else, or when I have no pressing reason to think about it e.g during the holidays. Other teachers, however, find that their lives are more or less consumed by teaching.

I guess If I'm honest, during the term I am pretty much consumed by school-life. Anyone who knows me pretty well will find I can, and will, ramble on about the wackiness of school for ages. I've only been back at school one day and already I am knackered and thinking about the millions of things I have to do with regards to school. Some of these millions of things are small, but still count as items on a seemingly never-ending to-do list. Aaaaargh, stressful....I hate having things to do!

Alongside all that one has to actually do as a teacher (physically and intellectually tiring things), M5 and M6 pointed out that teaching is emotionally exhausting too. There are very few other jobs where one goes in every day with a brave face ready to be confronted and challenged for 7 hours solid. Some of the behaviour really is challenging and wears you down. The problem is that you can't vent your feelings at school and so you end up storing it up and taking it out on someone or something else. Luckily for me I usually get rid of my stress at the gym, but they said that often they end up snapping at other people or are just too tired and stressed after school to want to do anything else (hence teaching taking over your life). M6 made the excellent point that teaching is completely manageable if everything else in your life is totally sorted and trouble free; a rare occurrence for most people.

In other news, I have a mouth ulcer and potential insomnia - my mind tends to wander when I'm in bed trying to sleep. That's kinda why I'm posting now, in the hope that writing down the words will stop my mind thinking them..although this could back-fire spectacularly since now the thoughts are fresh in my mind. I don't think the block of cheese I snacked on will help either...

PS Check out SB's blog for a really interesting debate on university tuition fees...
PPS JD the strategist eh? And there was me thinking you'd be something in security. I'm still looking for a Turk to match my Carla...

Personality Tests

As promised....

BBC Personality Test - I was a "supervisor".
Scrubs Personality Test 1 - I got Carla.
Scrubs Personality Test 2 - Again I got Carla.

I always get Carla despite answering the questions differently when repeating the quiz. Carla is clearly not a supervisor. I sense a flaw in the tests, perhaps because I am convinced the website can tell I am an ethnic female and so chooses Carla automatically.

BBC tests galore here on everything from perfectionism to adultery. So no need to do any work today folks!

The End of Half-Term

I am really rather amazed how quickly this week has gone. The dread (of having to go back to school) started on Friday and has stayed with me since. I can only hope this second half of term goes as quickly as the first. Not that I'm wishing my life away or anything...heehee, maybe just my teaching life.

Things I should have done but haven't:

1. Written my WA3 (comparing and contrasting SEN and EAL strategies)
2. Created my unit of work on multicultural maths
3. Done some planning
4. Marked my Y11 coursework
5. Sorted out my teaching file
6. Played around with ActivStudio so that my IWB was more interactive as opposed to just a glorified wall to write on
   
7. Thought about some internships
8. Played in two football matches for my team (rather than lying hungover and tired somewhere in London)
   
9. Recovered from the "plague"
10. Got some rest

Things I shouldn't have done but have:

1. Eaten and drunk enough to neutralise any effect from the gym
2. Spent about half a month's salary
3. Completely changed my sleeping pattern so that I am now almost nocturnal
4. Allowed the "plague" to permeate (the kids will sense my weakness)
5. Brainstormed (ok...fine...daydreamed) for about a day in total
6. Baked cakes and then devoured them
7. Danced like a fool (my calves just ache)
8. Laughed a lot ("nesting" anyone?)
9. Tried (and mosly failed) to matchmake anyone and everyone under the sun (watch this space though, I think there may be some success sooooooooon...)
10. Attempted to catch up on my reading by trying to read all five books that I'm midway through at once (this was silly...how many times have I been told to focus on one goal at a time?)
11. Somehow contracted amnesia thus sadly forgetting many many comedy events in my life

Well, my Head of Department did tell me to take a break from school work.

Happy half-term all those people who have this week off - I'm so jealous! Enjoy your week too to everyone else working away as normal! And wish me luck.

Ooooh, B said that Heroes starts this week on Sci-Fi, woohoo!

And finally, check out "How Not To Teach". See Mouche and Angie, I could be promoting your blogs if you ever updated them!

PS Gimmealift.com has actually had some quite positive feedback - shout out to Potter for her good ideas; congrats on the job and you know that one day we'll do it!

PPS Woohoo, come on you Spurs! Mwhahaha, Fulham, no more FA Cup for you!

Gimmealift.com

This is my other commuter idea. I am actually quite serious about this idea thus I am writing in black.

It came to me the other day when I was on my way to the gym. I drove past the bus stop at the end of my road and remembered how I used to wait there to get the bus to the station. Everyone waiting at that bus stop either wants to go to the station or to the town centre. Whenever I was waiting there I'd see car after car go by, and used to be fully convinced that over half of them would pass the station, and that at least one of them would think it'd be worth giving me a lift there if I paid them the bus fare (the journey from my bus stop to the station is about 5 mins, but takes over 15 minutes to walk). Anyway, this time I was the one in the car driving by, and I started contemplating whether anyone waiting at any of the bus stops I'd pass on the way was going anywhere along my route, and what it would take for me to give them a lift.

Later that day when I was having lunch with Ladun and debating the congestion charge, Ladun told me that outside of London most public transport is pretty rubbish and everyone drives everywhere. This again got me thinking about how many cars there were on the road, and how many people were going the same way as other people, and I started wondering whether it'd be possible to co-ordinate all these potential passengers and drivers, and what it would take to get a lift somewhere. To cut a looooong story short, I came up with gimmealift.com. I haven't actually got this website or anything yet - as always, I'm trapped in the idea phase. In fact, I haven't even pinned the idea properly down yet.

What I have done is a little bit of research. I typed in "organised hitch-hiking" into Google since I guess this is effectively what I'm proposing. It turns out that this is a long established practice in Germany, known as the Mitfahrzentrale (roughly translated as "the agency for shared rides"). True, this is over longer distances and booked more in advance, but it's kinda the same principle. People who want a ride somewhere give their request to one of the Mitfahrzentrale (there are quite a few agencies over there), who then match them up with one of the drivers who have said they are doing that journey. The agency takes a commission for setting up the match, the passenger gets a ride at a cheaper price than public transport, and the driver gets paid by the passenger for the lift (it's usually a certain number of euros per km, or the passenger splits the fuel cost or something like that). Similar schemes run in Belgium and across Europe too, some of which are for free (in that the agency doesn't take a cut, just matches up people).

The next commuter solution out there that I really loved is slugging. I think this only exists in America, and only this formally in Washington DC. Basically it's short-notice short-distance ride-sharing whereby drivers that want to drive in the faster "carpool" lanes pick up strangers (aka "slugs") so that they have enough people in their car to get into the carpool lane. This has become such a phenomenon that there are actual slug-lines where people queue to get their free lifts from strangers! Both parties win since the passenger gets his free ride and the driver gets his passenger so he can go in the faster carpool lane rather than sit in the traffic. Seriously, read through the link, its an amazing idea, I wish we could implement something similar here.

I guess what I'm thinking about is something in between slugging and the mitfahrzentrale. I'm trying to think of a way so that all the waiting commuters can get to their destinations just a little bit faster, while we make more efficient use of the cars that are out there. I guess I'm also thinking about more long distance journeys e.g. say if A needed a lift from London to Oxford on Monday and B was driving up then anyway, and A offered some money towards the fuel, would it be in B's interests to take A along?

My issues at the moment are: What are the actual logistics of a scheme like this (i.e. if it was going to be a spontaneous picking someone up at a bus stop type thing, how could the driver and passenger actually co-ordinate with each other)? Where's the incentive for people? What about safety? Could we make it more organised e.g. formal daily ride sharing by schools or companies?

I know it's a pretty vague idea at the moment, but I think it has business potential, and is good for the environment, and kinda socially enterprising too.

So, ideas/feedback? Could something like this work? And yes, we can change the name :)

The Arnolfini Portrait

Over breakfast I caught a snippet of a Channel 4 Learning show on drinking. It inspired me to stop pissing about and do some work today. So yes, a good start it seems.

After the drinking, there was a mini-program called National Gallery. Today's featured painting was The Arnolfini Potrait, Jan Van Eyck 1434. Here it is:


And some things that I've learnt about it:

1. The man in the picture was Giovanni di Nicolao Arnolfini, an Italian merchant living in what we now call Belgium.
2. He stands with his second wife, who is actually not pregnant, but instead wearing a full-skirted dress at the height of fashion. It was unlikely she ever had children.
3. They are very rich - clues include real fur trimmed clothes, a pretty dog, ornate surroundings, and oranges (rare and thus expensive).
4. Most interestingly, alongside the rear reflection of the couple, the mirror in the background also shows a vague reflection of another couple in the room. Is one of these people Mr Van Eyck? Further, the dog is not reflected...poor doggy.
5. And finally, the work is inscribed: "Johannes de eyck fuit hic". A website translates this Latin as "Jan Van Eyck was here". Good graffiti.

Here's a finger puppet version of the same picture, heehee:


You'll be pleased to know that I am busy researching my other commuter idea (I've made a brainstorm and everything!) so will be back here later with an update after I finish these boooooring old lesson plans....

Commuter Cupid

Happy Valentine's Day! I hope you've had a good one.

Strolling around London, I noted that it was indeed full of love. Very nice. I received the obligatory sweets and note from my folks, and a comedy message from a mate to "a beautiful sweaty Asian"...mmm romantic, heehee.

Decided to focus my entrepreneurial energies on love. Came up with The Love Train. Essentially speed-dating on the Tube, set-up in the style of those random silent flash mob discos (which, despite continually getting told about, I'm yet to attend, although they sound wicked. As an aside, that funkypancake blog is ace!) So, for example, the message would be spread that the last carriage of the eastbound Central line train on departing from Ealing Broadway at 17:57 on Tuesday would be a Love Train, where single commuters could congregate and ease their lonely hearts. Think about it, commuters spend aaages on the trains each day, and there are actually quite a lot of quite fit people on it, so why not spread a little love? It would also be particularly funny for the random tourists that get on that carriage and are subsequently approached by genuine Love Train passengers, heehee. Jade went one step further and told me I could hire a whole Circle line train and have dates going on all carriages for a whole evening, with people just popping on and off as they saw fit. I like the idea of being a Commuter Cupid.

Had lunch with Ladun, who's on her way to America/St Lucia for the next three months. Was lovely to see her; she's one of the few people who can persistently and consistently challenge me intellectually, which I like. I look forward to her changing the world one day. The restaurant we went to made me cross. The bill was £47.20, which included a £5.25 service charge! How ridiculous, considering the place was practically empty and the food/service wasn't great. Boo! The place is called Carthage - don't go there! On the plus side, along with numerous debates about all kinds of political issues, I told her about my other idea of the day to do with transport, which she quite liked. I like it too, but will save it for tomorrow in case it's a dry day on the ideas front. If you need an idea fix, check this out.

Mouchey Peas, why are you rambling on about herons and stalks? More fictional pets?

And finally, the crude joke, which I expect you to try and drop into polite conversation as soon as possible:

How do you know if your sister's on her period?
Your dad's cock tastes funny.

Eeeeewwww. Heehee.

Ramblings

It's Tuesday of half-term at 17:16. I am very tired. I blame the builders for banging all the time. I am not convinced they are even making anything. Humph.

I also blame the "plague" I currently kinda have. It must be from the school kids. More humph.

Anyway, enough grumbling and on to the rambling. Yesterday I spent a day as a housewife, doing such wonderful things as spend aaages in the sauna (without the weird lady, thankfully), do the shopping, have coffee, bake a cake, and play the piano. I decided that being a lady of leisure is really rather appealing and so spontaneously revised my life plan. It turned out it was good time to think about my life plan since when I was dropping my Mum off at her fitness class we had a lovely chat about how I really should start thinking about settling down. Hmmm. I'm not convinced my parents realise I am a cheeky little monkey trapped inside an Oxford graduate, who will not mature enough to "settle down" for a long time.

I had dinner with Ish and Clare last night and we slipped into an impromptu brainstorming session, as we are often prone to do. Even way back in the first year we were all plotting away on how to make our millions, certain we are meant to be entrepreneurs. This part of me hasn't really been dormant, but it's been reawakened recently. They are both convinced the future is India (and not China as commonly thought) so we spent lots of time thinking of serious, and not-so-serious, ideas to hit the jackpot. I told them about my "commuter blind date" idea; they thought it was a bit stalkerish, and there's obviously loads of reasons why it wouldn't work, but I do kinda like it. I think my mind is stuck on matchmaking. Anyway, we didn't really get anywhere, but it was great to think about that kinda stuff again, and so obviously I spontaneously changed my life plan again. I guess I shouldn't really call it a plan...more of a strategy.

So today I came up with two more ideas:

1. Compatibility advice for couples based on astrology - Asian families do this anyway, in that they check out the compatibility of birth charts when they are looking for potential engagements for their son/daughter. This fits the matchmaking bill.
2. A life-choice simulator - some really really complicated computer program type thing that would calculate all the outcomes for your life depending on the choices you made. Obviously this is completely impossible since you can never predict everything and there are far too many factors, but it'd be nice to see in advance what will happen because of your choices. Thinking about this now, it has significant connections with time-travelling devices. So might have to scrap that one.

You may be wondering what happened to the medicine plan...well, now I'm not entirely convinced it's for me, and I guess you have to be certain before you go into something like that. Also my littlest brother has jumped on this bandwagon too, and I refuse for all three of us to be doctors!

Right, that is the end of the rambling today...ooh except I heard a really crude funny joke yesterday. I probably shouldn't write it on here, but if you wanna hear it, let me know.

PS Continuing on the theme of junk with the Disney girls, check out FreeCycle. There're groups for each of the London boroughs and all over the world too. What a great idea! Mouche, I may have to give away your PoS...

Random things, but most importantly...

It's half-term! I am sitting here reading the papers and listening to X-FM in my pyjamas after a luxurious brunch in a completely empty house (bliss!....my folks have gone to a lunch, but not before our breakfast guests departed...who else has visitors before 11am on a Sunday?! A wonderful excuse to hide in my bed).

Hahahaha, I think I may be delirious from the knowledge that I don't have to go to school this week :) Either that or still drunk. I have become a glorious lightweight, and also a more responsible drinker i.e. no longer having to sink everything in sight. Well done me.

On the down side, I now have a bit of a cold. How annoying. I always get ill when I have a kinda slow down in life pace. Boo. Still, plenty of echinacea, vitamin C and zinc will boost me through. I think I got it from the weird lady in the sauna at the gym, who despite my clearly trying to relax (with my eyes shut and everything), insisted on attempting to make me talk to her. Some highlights of efforts to trap me in conversation included:

"what kind of fish do you eat?"
"are you worried about bird flu?"
"there's a court in Snaresbrook you know"
and, most alarmingly, "when are you coming here next?"

She creeps me out, and the fact that she is quite emaciated, has scary worm hair, and sunken eyes doesn't help. In future I won't be so polite, since clearly my downfall came from answering her questions, even if my answers were horribly blunt. Further, this will limit the chances of her committing ID fraud with all the random personal information she has gleaned from me. I think she's a witch.

In other news, I am still full from the gorgeous feast created by Noor last night. And also mightily impressed at Charlotte "Ginger" Rhead's ability to drink more than half a bottle of rum disguised as mojitos, and still be standing. Inspiring. Also inspired by Noor's beautiful house and woods to once again contemplate becoming motivated by material possessions. Luckily these thoughts were quashed by numerous debates about teaching and the marketing machine that is TF etc. I think this job has taken me over. Yeen, we missed you, but drank in your honour.

And finally, when it comes out, make sure you see Freedom Writers - I've heard it's a wonderful film, in the vein of Dangerous Minds, based on a true story about a super-teacher (Erin Gruwell, played by Hilary Swank) who changes the lives of the young monsters in her charge through a diary project. Something for all us TFs, I'm sure. Maybe we can get them to screen it for us for free?

PS Potter, congrats on finishing your exams!

Every other school in the borough....

...was closed today. Except for....that's right...you guessed it.....my school.

And why, you ask? Because we're an Academy and so we "put learning first".

Rubbbbish. Learning? What learning? The kids were absolutely off the wall. Particularly since right from the start of the day they were told they couldn't go outside because of health and safety issues. Surely this is against some kinda school rule or something?

Anyway, how can they expect kids to learn when they're practically being kept prisoner and there's lots of beautiful fun snow outside? If we'd let them out for 15 mins, most of them woulda got bored by then and got it outta their system. But no. So instead we have them bouncing off the walls inside school.

Glorified babysitting, that's what we did today. Except at least you can control babies.

Tomorrow will be worse:

1. Still no fixed classrooms so mayhem.
2, Black ice will form over night and so everywhere will be slippery and dangerous.
3. It's non-uniform day.
4. It's the last day before the break.
5. The fire alarm was set off twice today and no-one was caught (while the kids who set it off yesterday got off with "community service").

Aaaaaaargh! Fingers crossed lots of them stay home tomorrow. One more day, that's all I can say....

On the plus side, some comedy work below from my delightful little brother and his St John's buddies. Creative stuff. See, this is why the rest of the Tabs would "rather be at Oxford than at John's". Aaah to be a student again...

Things that probably wouldn't have happened if I'd worked in the City

Obviously there are trillions of things that could go on this list, so I'll keep it to events from the last three days that probably wouldn't have happened if I'd worked in an office:

1. I wouldn't have had to write a police witness statement.
2. I wouldn't have had to run two meeetings with two groups of "colleagues" simultaneously, one meeting of which I had no idea about (substitute "run meeting" with "teach lesson" and that'll make more sense).
3. I wouldn't hear profanities continually all day (including "f*ck off you f*cking c*nt" and "you f*cking Muslim" - two delightful highlights, neither of which were aimed at me, luckily, although I was told to "piss off" today).
4. I wouldn't have to deal with stroppy/sulky/hyper/whiney/smelly/dopey etc. colleagues.
5. I wouldn't have had to intervene in a fight, which led to me being shoved and all my books being dropped to the ground (ooooh, how dramatic, looking forward to absolutely nothing being done about these monsters).
6. I wouldn't have to change offices randomly all day every day because the whole office building is falling apart, with my "colleagues" using any excuse they can to avoid their meetings.
7. I wouldn't have to find random "colleagues" wandering the "office" and then having to baby-sit these colleagues alongside a whole other group of colleagues in the hall because there are no spare offices, when all the time I was meant to be in a PE meeting.
8. My colleagues wouldn't set off the fire alarm almost weekly so that we all have to evacuate the office and stand in the playground under the evil seagulls, who use us innocent people as target practice.
9. I wouldn't have to constantly battle with my colleagues over just about everything that needs to be done each day.
10. I wouldn't feel like I was working in a zoo.

Heehee, I can sense my analogies are getting mixed up so I will stop now. Essentially school has been tough these last few days; it's a general build-up of chaos and lack of management. I'm not too impressed, but still managing to keep going and fight my way through it. But right now it seems to me that the biggest problem in my school (and probably other Teach First schools) is behaviour, in that the kids just cannot behave appropriately and so learning is disrupted. I wonder if there'd be a straight-forward way to tackle such poor behaviour, especially since the causes of it are numerous...All I can think of at the moment is getting those "SuperNanny"/"Boot Camp" soldier people in. Cos at the moment, the kids rule that school. And they know it.

Thursday and Friday

I am experimenting with orange. I quite like it, although I think it'd be more ace against black.

Following Spurs' defeat on Weds, I taught a whole day on Thursday. Pretty exciting stuff in the afternoon. I was in with Y9 and the Head of Department comes up and asks me to go and get a member of SLT to remove a kid from his class. Given that usually we call our HoD to haul kids outta our class, I wondered who it was that he needed help removing. I duly summoned an SLT member and they got "RP" out the class. However instead of dealing with her themselves, they gave her to me to take back to the lesson I was in. Why? Because they were all busy sorting out a fight between Y8 and Y11 that had happened at lunchtime. Anyway, she obviously caused a fair bit of chaos there (telling the kid next to her to "f*ck off" and calling me a "bitch") before we had to kick her out too (handing her back to SLT in the PE block). The next day, I asked SLT why RP was in school anyway when she clearly wasn't suited to our school life. They said they couldn't kick her out until they'd done everything they could. How is that fair for all the other kids that have to put up with her?

Thursday night went to TF Diners' Club in Waterloo. This one was for entrepreneurs' so had lots of nice chatter with people who owned their own businesses and people who wanted to set up things etc. Wasn't quite as impressed or inspired as I usually am when watching Dragons' Den but one guy in particular (salesforce.com) really sold himself and his business and managed to fight his corner very well (yes, I had indeed had a few drinks and was feeling wonderfully argumentative!)

Hangover on Friday. What a shocking week for being knackered and drinking. Finally I remember why I decided way back in September that it would be smart to go to bed early and not drink on a school night. Obviously, then, Friday is also the day that the maths department is declared unsafe for use and so all our classes are in chaos. Y11 lesson 1 were actually pretty good - breakthrough on the percentages front, whoop! At lunchtime I catch kids climbing up the scaffolding. They run away so I spend a jolly time chasing and admonishing them. Y7 after lunch were meant to have a lesson on angles. Had planned a group work lesson with protractors. Foolishly let them chose their own groups and have to improvise without the interactive whiteboard. Some work hard, others cause hassle. Finally I crack and hurl detentions left, right and centre. Tiring lesson indeed, but mainly because the scaffolding kids stressed me out at lunchtime and I was still wired for Y7. I need to learn to detach.

After that I have to cover 7E during tutor period. I like all the year 7 forms, but 7E are always a hassle. Managed to struggle through a 20 minute discussion on the "pros and cons of teaching" (yep, I often use the kids to sort out my own dilemmas) while various kids fell off chairs, shouted at each other, shook their fizzy drinks cans and sulked in corners. Good stuff. Anyway, I told them they couldn't go home until the pros list was longer than the cons, and then they started focussing, but still, didn't need the hassle.

Finally then, after school "SC" in Y9 is effing and blinding by the office demanding her mobile back. She refuses to leave the premises for about an hour before the police are called and come to escort her off. She still won't leave so they put her in the van and take her to the station. I wonder if she'll get excluded for that? By that point of the day, I wanted nothing more than to just run away, but instead played a solid game of indoor 5-aside and then felt like a million dollars. It's all about the sport.

Glad it's the weekend. Bumped into Dan F from primary school today - am now even more convinced that your mates at 11 will still be some of the greatest people you know. Am now inspired once again, but will focus on not thinking about kids for the rest of the day. One week to half-term :)

Puj, Fruli-frenzy had to be cut short cos they ran out of Fruli! We switched to merlot though, bon. Looking forward to hearing about India!

Telford School and Mr Radcliffe

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bed time

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

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

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

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

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

Old Furies Weekend

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

So highlights:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lowlights:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Drama

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

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

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

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

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

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

In other news, two comedy events from the day:

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

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

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

Tutor time in the afternoon:

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

No school tomorrow, training day, yay!

Bricks in the freezer

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

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

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

That time of the term

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

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

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

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

Two new words for you Mouchio: munificent and grandiloquent.

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

The Wind

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

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

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

But let me start at the start.

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

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

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

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

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

My day

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

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

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

Running for the bus

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

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




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

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

Sprouts and MePij, hope all is well.

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

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

New words

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

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

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

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