Day 176: N(early) Q(ualified) T(eacher)

Last Friday saw the close of what was, essentially, one of the most important weeks of my teaching career to date: The External Assessment Week. Some charming gentleman was coming in on behalf of The Programme to meet with our mentors, observe our lessons, and analyse our portfolios, all to see if we should qualify for QTS in the summer. Kind of a big deal.

To be perfectly honest, I wasn't too bothered. Sure, I wanted to do well, but after the year I've had, the last thing I was concerned about was what some chump thought of me. Or so I thought. On Monday I met one of my fellow participants and she showed me her portfolio. What you need to know is that I was previously praised for having mine in order and I thought that meant that I was ahead of the game. I was, but that was two months ago. As I flicked through my colleague's charmingly bepostitnoted tome I realised something: I was fucked. What followed was two late nights of frantic typing, sorting and printing. I had to develop two units of work that I had planned and taught, and present them with full lesson plans and evaluations. I took two nights doing one. I had planned to go out Wednesday night and as the observation was Thursday I really needed to be in a position where I was basically ready to roll by Wednesday afternoon but as it turned out, that didn't happen.

After a fabulous night out in Brixton with a little too much beer, I wafted into work at 6.30, hungover but alert. I set to prepping and printing data for my portfolio, adding myriad post-its to show where I knew I was missing work. Then I wrote a nice long list of all the work I needed to do. I am nothing if not honest. As for the observation, I had decided to teach a lesson I'd planned for year 11 way back when, because it required little reworking and the powerpoint had been used by my colleagues so I knew it was good. I was suddenly glad that I had gone out the night before, because panic had been replaced by a serenity which, although was somewhat misleading, meant that I knew I was going to be OK.

I was rather perturbed when, as I was being harassed by a certain year 9 in the corridor (apparently she wanted access to my computer "to work on stuff") my LDO appeared out of nowhere and introduced me to the new Programme Participant who would be joining English. Brave move, I thought. She seemed nice enough (was I that positive a year ago?) and I showed her around my classroom and the department, even introducing her to a few colleagues. Our little tour was interrupted by the approach of my assessor, so I let him in to my (painstakingly laid out) classroom and waited for the students to arrive.

I had bribed them the lesson before ("there's a very important person going to be observing our lesson tomorrow. Please be nice. There may be some chocolate in it for you...") so I was pleased when they, for the most part, turned up on time and got on with the starter. The rest of the lesson went pretty well - there were a few notable absentees, and the ones who were there tried really hard to participate, politely no less. I could have hugged every single one of them when the lesson ended and we got through everything. My lessons are regularly mistimed (my penchant for tangents) but this one went OK.

After the kids left the assessor asked me how I thought it went, and if I enjoyed the lesson. I had, actually, because the kids really enjoyed the short story - one of my favourites - and seemed to get into the activities. I was due to meet with him after lunch for my feedback and portfolio 'chat', so I skipped off to the English Office to eat before heading downstairs. I needn't have been concerned (not that I was, really) because he was rather nice, actually. He was probably relieved by my to-do list, because it meant he didn't have to think, really, and said that the lesson went well. He basically said that, assuming I do all the things I said I need to, I'll qualify for QTS, which is nice.

Naturally, with that day over, Friday went very quickly indeed, and it was on to the weekend I had been looking forward to so much. I turned up to work today feeling pretty down in the dumps, not only because I only woke up at 7.55 (two hours later than planned) and bombed into school without even getting a shower first, just making it to briefing in time to hear our professional mentor congratulating us on our hard work the week before, and a rather embarrassing round of applause. Cringe.

I only had one lesson today - year 7 - and it was a new subject: Stories With a Twist. I was a little slow in getting their assessment for the last half term done, so we are only starting it now, but the kids seemed to like it. I even managed to put together a powerpoint for it, despite how late I was. What was really interesting, alas for me and not the students, was that this exact lesson was one I had observed on my visit to the school a whole year ago. How bizarre. It's so odd to think back to a year ago, and the life I was living then, the expectations I had, and the misconceptions. I remember it had been the day after I'd gotten back from Thailand, so I was jet lagged and extremely spaced out. I had met a couple of colleagues who chatted to me and showed me some work, and I'd politely shown an interest. Apparently I'd talked about painting the classroom then, which had been 'annoying'.

It may be strange, but only now am I really in a position (despite how much marking I have) to sit back and think about the year. There was a girl from The Programme doing her School Observation Experience, which I'd done in late June last year in an academy in Peckham. I talked to her frankly (although not that frankly) about what the year had been like ("it has been horrible at times...") and offered to show her my portfolio. Apparently her year won't be doing the RJAs which is nice. Speaking of which, that's something else I have to do this week.

Finally, I was shown my potential new timetable for next year by my mentor. Although it will more than likely change, I will be teaching a year 7, a bottom set year 8 (ARGH) a top set year 10 and 9, no year 11, but a retake year 12. I was pretty pleased about 7, 9 and 10, although absolutely gutted that I won't be teaching year 11 because I was supposed to keep my class. Having said that, they are rearranging the classes into three bands rather than two, so they would have all been split up anyway.

So there you go. Only 4 weeks left. I can't really believe it's gone so quickly. I just hope I can get on top of everything I need to by the end of term. There's so much I'm excited about next year: Latin Club, having a tutor group, being more established as a teacher, perhaps starting the rugby club like I'd wanted, and actually working on making sure I'm a happy person and understanding the importance of putting that before getting shit done for school.

I guess I need to get through the rest of this term first. Roll on, summer.

Day 166: New Directions

After the shit storm I kicked up on the last day of term, I saw this playing out one of two ways. Either I pulled myself together, sought the help and support I required and got back on track to become the teacher I want to be or... I decided to quit, turned this blog into a juicy tell-all book (with the odd elaboration) and got myself into more trouble.

You may be surprised to read that I went for the first option.

To be honest, this was purely down to the reaction of The Programme. I of course did not tell them about the rather less pleasant option two, but they (my LDO and tutor) listened to me, gave me advice and reminded me of my good points as a teacher and, well, supported me to the point that it didn't all feel like a massive waste of time.

So, on the back of their advice, and a week of relaxation, I got up this morning with all the determination and positivity of... yeah, well you get the idea. After a minor detour to help a little old lady find her way to hospital (I ended up walking her the whole way there) I walked into school, not quite ready to get back into it after such a nice week off.

After morning briefing I quickly scrabbled together a lesson for my year 7s which ended up going ok. They are a pretty nice group, and will usually do whatever I ask them. Since getting to know them better I find it quite embarrassing knowing that the more able ones are probably bored by the pace of the class, but it tends to be a lot of group discussions. Maybe I should try to incorporate more group work. I have been determined to try some of the things suggested by the lilac-lite course I did with school.

The rest of the day was free, as I didn't expect my year 11s to turn up in period 5 for their last lesson before their exam tomorrow. I spent the next few periods marking my year 7 APPs. By 5.15 I had actually finished them all. I was so pleased - the folders were up to date and a massive weight was taken off my shoulders. I tried to repeat this success with my outstanding year 9 APPs but I realised it was too big a mission so late in the day so I went through the behaviour manager for the new kids I'm getting in the class. Only two look like real problems. I have no idea what to expect, but during my mentor meeting I talked through what to teach them - Romeo and Juliet. Argh! I quite enjoyed teaching this to my year 10s, but the thought of going from top set year 10 to bottom set year 9 was a little bit depressing. I'm hoping my colleagues who taught bottom set year 10 will be able to help me out. I'm hoping to turn my year 9 class into a development one - so they don't think of themselves as bottom set, and so we can do lots of basic literacy things to get them up to scratch. Well, that's the idea anyway. I'm hoping the influx of girls and rigid-er setting will make a difference to the dynamic of the group, but either way I need to prepare a kick-ass first lesson to get them on side. I imagine tomorrow will be a tad chaotic with room changes, seating plans and just getting their books together. I hope that they are a bit nicer this time around...

So after 12 hours at school I ran home, changed, and went straight to the gym for a class. It felt good to sweat out the day, and although I'm still not enjoying the exercise right now, I am determined to get in shape and I know it'll help me feel better in the long run. I am also trying to be more positive in general, and most importantly, try to be more balanced at work. I think stress and fatigue got the better of me last term and I know that in order to keep my colleagues on side, and be more professional, I need to stop yoyo-ing between misery and jubilation.

I've made a mental list of all the things I am going to do this half term and so here it is:

1. Be more positive.
2. Be more calm and less emotional.
3. Try not to shout if I can avoid it.
4. Blog every day and think about professional development when I do.
5. Stay on top of paperwork.
6. Remember why I'm doing this. The real reasons.
7. Do enough outside of school to keep me sane.
8. Try not to leave school until I've planned lessons for the next day (oops...)

I think that's it for now. Anyway, on that note - ciao.